Hopefully this morning I’m going to help some of us with the struggles that are going on in
us. I’m not going to eliminate them maybe just define them. The reason we are struggling so
much is because……..we are being consumed. Ok sermon over. Thank you. Have a nice day.

 No really we are simply getting what we’ve been praying for. God is consuming us. He is
overtaking us. He is giving us more of Him and less of us. Isn’t it great that God still answers
prayers? It is great for our spirits, a little hard on our souls.

 I will often wonder why it seems like I don’t have much time anymore. I used to work a full
time job and go to the bar at least two if not more nights a week and it seemed like I had much
more time than I do now. It’s because now I spend Wednesday nights and Sunday’s giving
my time to Him. I spend Thursday every other week getting praise and worship ready for Him.
I spend once a month trying to hear clearly what He needs us to know in a message from
Him. I spend time listening to teaching tapes so I can become more wise in His ways. I spend
time praying so I can hear what He’s saying. My life is becoming not my own because I’m
bought and paid for with a price. Therefore my body is to honor God. Everything I do is to
become an honor to Him. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

1 Corinthians 7:29 what I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who
have wives should live as if they had none; 30those who mourn, as if they did not; those who
are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;
31those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its
present form is passing away.

  No matter where we’re at in our lives we need to remember that this life is not what we live
for anymore. This life is passing away.

 Up until we really gave our lives to Christ we lived in a world of our own making. The day we
decided to hand it over to Him a revolt started in us, a new Kingdom came in and started
taking over. Now what happened in Iraq when the US went over there to start taking over the
old reign? Not only did the old government revolt but the very people we went there to save
revolted. That is the war that is going on inside us and we can feel it. Even those things in us
that we know are being saved and we want to be saved and we hate ruling over us are
revolting against the new reign in us. Crazy isn’t it? We want those things to be saved and
yet we allow those things to revolt against the reign of God.

 Have you ever spent a day doing what you wanted maybe shopping, a date, hunting,
sleeping and when it was over it didn’t last long enough. Now the war begins. The appetite of
self will never be satisfied. Like one of the pastors I listen says, a day wants another hour, a
week wants one more day, a month wants one more week. It’s never ending. So the thought
comes I want another hour, then the new reign comes in and says you already had a day
now it’s time to go back to work for the Kingdom. You’re spirit knows this is right but your
soul still wants another hour. The soul is not to keen on the new reign telling it what to do. So
it says but…but…but I didn’t have long enough, I don’t ever get time anymore, it didn’t satisfy
my hunger just another hour and I’ll be satisfied. The new reign says you know that’s not
true. You had another hour last time and it didn’t satisfy you. In fact you felt worse because
you weren’t obedient. Again you’re spirit knows this is true but the soul tries again, this time
is different because……..You are now in a full blown struggle. Which way will you choose?
Old reign death, new reign life? Right now I am kind of 50/50. Sometimes the new reign wins
and sometimes the old reign wins. But what I can feel happening now is the new reign is
winning more and more, the new reign is becoming more established and its reign is getting
more and more powerful. The old reign is feeling the pressure and it’s arching it’s back and
hissing. It knows its time is getting shorter and shorter. It knows before long it will have no
territory left so right now it’s retaliating with everything it’s got.

Genesis 32:1 Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 When Jacob saw
them, he said, "This is the camp (host) (meaning army of people) of God!" So he named that
place Mahanaim. (meaning two camps, two armies coming together) 3 Jacob sent messengers
ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. 4 He instructed
them: "This is what you are to say to my master Esau: 'your servant Jacob says, I have been
staying with Laban and have remained there till now. 5 I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and
goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may
find favor in your eyes.' " 6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to
your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." 7
In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and
the flocks and herds and camels as well. 8 He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group,
the group that is left may escape."  9 Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God
of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I
will make you prosper,' 10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown
your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two
groups.(I’m part old reign and part new reign) 11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother
Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. (Old
Reign) 12 But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants
like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.(New Reign)

 (We struggle because part of us knows the promises of God. We know they are true and He’
s promised them and said what He’d do for us and yet the circumstances and the old reign
make it look as if they will ever come to pass. We are faced with an army and aren’t sure we
will live to make it to the promises.) (Just like Jacob we think we are about to encounter a war
with our circumstances. Jacob thinks the army he has come up against is Esau and he wants
desperately for God to save him. Just like us, we think we are coming up against sickness or
money problems, or people problems.)

(NIV) Ephesians 6:12 for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces
of evil in the heavenly realms.

  Jacob was not about to struggle with the armies of Esau he was about to struggle with the
armies of the living God because Jacob still had an army within him that needed to be
defeated, An army that was still resisting the new reign of the Kingdom of God.

13 He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother
Esau, (Jacob thought he was about to enter into a war with flesh and blood so he mustard up
everything from what he had with him, in other words the weapons he knew how to fight with.
Jacob had no idea what was really going on) 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male
goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty female camels with their young, forty
cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 He put them in the
care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep
some space between the herds." 17 He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau
meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all
these animals in front of you?' 18 then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob.
They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.' " 19 He also instructed the
second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to
Esau when you meet him. 20 And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.' "
For he thought, "I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him,
perhaps he will receive me." 21 So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent
the night in the camp.
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons
and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over
all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
(Jacob wrestled until it was about time for the light to break forth, until he  was about to see
the light) 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of
Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. (Jacob was wrestling
with everything in him and was not giving in to God. He was not letting the new reign overtake
Him. So he had to be touched by God. You know what I mean, one of those moments when
God’s reality becomes so real and your humanity becomes so small that you can not deny
Him access anymore and then you say you’ve been touched by God.) (The hollow of his
thigh. The hollow was the soft place. The thigh was the place where they carried their sword.
God touched him in a place where his defenses were soft.) 26 Then the man said, "Let me go,
for it is daybreak." (Stop wrestling Jacob you are about to see the Light) But Jacob replied, "I
will not let you go unless you bless me." (Jacob would not give up until he knew what God’s
blessing for Him was. He had to know what the new reign had in store for him. Blessing does
not always mean happy soft fuzzies.) 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" (Who are
you Jacob? Take a long hard look, who are you?)
"Jacob," he answered.(Maybe head down in shame. I’m a deceiver. I’m a supplanter, schemer.
I’m no good. This is Jacob’s soft place in his armor. He finally sees he is nothing in the
presence of a Holy God. Everything he’s ever done is deceitful in the presence of God. He
finally sees that his reign is nothing anymore and gives into the reign of the new Kingdom.) 28
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have
struggled with God and with men and have overcome."(Now God can do something with him.
Now God says this struggle is over. My new Kingdom has won this battle in you Jacob. Now I
can rename you, Israel, God prevails, God’s new Kingdom now reigns) 29 Jacob said, "Please
tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my
life was spared."

Most of our Christian life is lived in this struggle of new Kingdom replacing the old.
Sometimes it takes long drawn out battles because of things we don’t want to give up,
sometimes we are so tired of the old reign in an area that we let go easily. Either way it is an
awesome victory when the new reign takes more territory.

My prayer today Father is that we will submit to the New Reign in our lives. Father just like in
Iraq, it is only to our hurt to hold on to our old ways of thinking. Letting You take over and
rule in us is freedom and peace. Let us embrace this New Kingdom and stop resisting it. We
Love You Lord!!
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New Reign, Old Reign
September 22, 2008