Summer Jams 24 Part 3 | Seven Nation Army, The White Stripes with Jess Schlotterbeck

Welcome to Hub City Vineyard.

To get connected or to give online, go to hcv.church or give.htv.church.

If at any point during this message you feel called to make a change in your life, text

change me to 970-00.

Thank you and enjoy the message.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

It's a beautiful day here in the Tri-State area.

Welcome back to Hub City Arena where your favorite local worship team is two for two

on the season and headed to the plate for another big hit.

So please get ready to stomp your feet.

Put your hands together as Hub City Vineyard, Hub City Worship brings you one of the biggest

stadium anthems of the century, the White Stripes Seven Nation Army.

I'm gonna fight them off, a seven nation army couldn't hold me back.

They're gonna rip it up, taking their time right behind my back.

And I'm talking to myself all night because I can't forget.

Going back and forth through my mind behind a cigarette.

And the message coming from my eyes says leave it alone.

Don't wanna hear about it.

Every single one's got a story to tell.

Everyone knows about it.

From the Queen of England to the Hounds of Hell.

And if our kids are coming back, we're gonna be the first to know.

And that ain't what you want to hear, but that's what I'll do.

And the feeling coming from my bones says find a home.

Find a home.

I'm gonna win Chita.

Far from this opera forevermore.

I'm gonna work the straw.

Make the sweat drip out of every pore.

And I'm breathing and I'm bleeding and I'm bleeding hard before the Lord.

All the words are gonna bleed from me and I will think no more.

And the stage coming from my blood says go back home.

I'm gonna win Chita.

Yes, yes, welcome to Hustle and Bender.

Good morning, good morning.

If you weren't awake before that, now you are, right?

Yes, happy Father's Day.

How's everybody doing today?

Yeah.

What a great Sunday.

What a great Sunday.

We hope you received a root beer and some hot dogs when you came in or a high five.

And if you're joining us online, we're so glad you welcomed us into your space.

You don't get a hot dog this morning, but you do get a great band and the Word of God.

So, yeah, so excited to be here today.

I'm gonna welcome you guys.

My name's Jess if you don't know me.

I don't think I introduced myself for service, but anyway, they'll figure it out.

And so this is another week of Summer Jams where we explore popular songs through a God-sized magnifying glass.

And this week, our amazing team, you can give it up for them one more time.

And Elijah performed Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes.

The White Stripes are part of a post-punk garage band revival that emerged around 2000.

And now the worship team is all, they're arguing if they're punk, if they're not punk.

I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna copy what's on the thing.

But yeah, so it's like a stripped down version of rock and roll.

The band consisted of only two members, Jack and Meg White.

The Seven Nation Army has one of the most famous bass lines in music.

But interestingly enough, it wasn't created with a bass.

The White Stripes didn't have a bass player.

They're only a guitar and a drummer.

So Jack White played the rift using a guitar with an octave effect to sound like a bass.

Jack White despised the rift at a sound check before a show in Melbourne, Australia on January 29, 2002.

Jack recalled to the Rolling Stone,

Jack White told the Independent that the main riff was a riff he planned to use if he ever got asked to do a James Bond theme song.

But he didn't think that was likely to happen, so he went ahead and used it in Seven Nation Army.

Ironically enough, he later got asked to write a James Bond theme song with Alicia Keys, so it was awesome.

Seven Nation Army didn't catch on right away.

The song only made it to number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 after its release in March of 2003.

But though it did top alternative charts, but its life as a sports anthem began six months later

when fans of the Belgian soccer team traveled to Italy for a match against AC Milan.

The Italians heard it, they loved it, they adopted it as their own, and when Italy won the World Cup in 2006, the world heard it.

It's a simple, catchy, and aggressive, according to one news reporter.

Fans sing the song's guitar central riff, it's just,

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, come on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, good, yes, you guys know it, see, it was so easy, so easy.

It's hypnotizing, it's powerful, it's just, everybody feels connected.

So these seven perfect notes are sung by so many of us.

However, do you know what we're singing?

We know the meaning behind the words.

Sometimes we find ourselves singing

or in a crowd of people,

and we just are going along with the crowd.

So today, we're gonna explore what's behind the music.

We're gonna explore the lyrics,

and we're gonna explore to see

if we can grow in our relationship with God and others.

Let's pray.

Holy Spirit, we thank you for your presence here, God.

We thank you for your peace, Lord.

We thank you that you are present.

Lord, we thank you that we can learn about you

through music, through life, through circumstances.

And Lord, today I just ask that you would use my words

to just glorify you, Lord,

that those that came in today

would just come away changed, Lord.

We just thank you for all this.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Amen, so my first point today is a really great one.

It's we deceive others for our own gain.

So I'm just gonna start right off with sin.

Sorry, guys.

Sorry, guys, so, but you know, it's okay,

because we all lie.

And we've actually all been taught to lie as a social norm.

In a scientific article,

The Origins of Lying and Deception in Everyday Life,

Michael Lewis talks about,

they do these experiments on kids.

They take the kids and they give them a toy

that they didn't want,

but the kids learn how to lie and say, oh, I like it.

I think we've all kinda done that one.

Grandma gives you the toy.

You say thank you and you smile.

I don't care if you don't like it.

She got it for you.

All right, we will return it later.

All right?

I don't know why we encourage that as parents,

but we do,

because we wanna make the other person feel good, right?

If we all were honest all the time,

we'd have a lot of people that were crying.

Anyway, I guess, I don't know.

But you would tell me like my shirt is a little mesmerizing

and like why did she wear that shirt?

And I'd be like, okay, I don't know.

And anyway, so there'd be a lot more honest conversations.

So we often call this practice little white lies,

although as scientists, as people, we prefer to say,

lying to protect the feeling of others.

And this is socially acceptable, but is it God's best?

However, there are other types of lies or deceptions.

So as kids begin to tell those lies

that you're telling them to tell their grandparents,

they then start to tell lies

so that they can get away with stuff for their own good.

No, I didn't watch any TV today.

No, I picked up my toys.

I can watch TV, right?

They start to tell lies

so that they can do what they wanna do, right?

I ate all my dinner.

Weren't you just in the bathroom

and you took your plate and scraped it in the toilet?

No, no, that wasn't me.

And they've got the facial expression and everything.

But then we continue this practice as adults,

deceiving our friends, deceiving our family,

because we still don't wanna get in trouble.

We don't wanna face consequences for our actions.

I'm not sure where all that cash went.

I guess I might have given it to the kids.

I've only been watching Netflix for like,

this is only my second episode, yeah.

I plan on doing the dishes later.

Yeah, I've only been playing my game,

on my game system for like an hour.

I swear, I swear.

It's only been an hour.

I'm gonna go and mow the grass later.

Or that last piece of cake, what?

Oh, you would never believe it.

The dog came up and got the cake.

We're not supposed to be eating sweets.

It's just gone, right?

We just make up those lies all the time

just to protect ourselves, to make other people happy.

And then we also are doing it

so that we can have an advantage, right?

Some of us go further by lying to our employers

or by cheating on our taxes or our assignments at school.

It's all on the internet.

We can just kinda copy and paste.

It's not really cheating, right?

Everybody does it.

Or then we go take it further.

We cheat on our spouse, right?

The one lie builds on another and we are trapped.

So good news is there are people in the Bible

that did the same kinda thing.

So I think lying's been around for a long time,

but we're gonna see how God helps us through it, okay?

So let's head into the Bible this morning

and learn from a story that's all about lies

and family deception.

Happy Father's Day.

You all have broken families.

It's good, we're gonna talk about it.

We're gonna pray at the end.

You'll be good, okay.

So in Genesis, if you guys have ever read Genesis,

Genesis is where the Bible starts.

And so Abraham and Sarah, these old people,

and they get blessed with a child and his name's Isaac.

And through Isaac's line, the world's gonna be changed

and we're gonna be blessed through this family line.

And Isaac became a father to twin boys

through his wife, Rebecca.

And when the boys are born, the twins literally like,

there's two, they're called Jacob and Esau,

and Jacob is literally holding onto Esau's heel.

He's trying to pull him back into the womb.

He's trying to pull his brother back into the womb.

I could not imagine this.

I birthed six kids, right?

None of my stories are like this.

I never had twins.

Christy, who's our administrator,

her daughter just had twins.

God bless her.

But her story is not like this.

This isn't a common story about a twin

grabbing onto another twin

and trying to steal the birthright.

So Jacob's name literally means

heel catcher, subplanter, or deceiver, right?

He wants to take what's his brother's.

He wants to fight for it, right?

He wanted to come out first.

And so we're gonna learn his story.

So fast forward, so we have Jacob and Esau

and they're born to Isaac and Rebecca.

And so Isaac has one blessing,

and typically on that day they bless the older son

with the blessing.

So it's time to receive the blessing from Isaac,

but guess what?

Mama steps in.

Oh no, my son, who I love, is Jacob.

So Jacob was closer to his mom,

and Isaac was closer to his daddy,

like to hunt and do those things,

and Jacob stayed home.

So mom wants to make sure her son gets the blessing.

So she comes up with this story,

and Jacob goes along with it.

So she says, you're gonna receive the blessing,

you're gonna trick your father and your brother,

and I'm gonna help you, all right?

They're not a dysfunctional family at all.

Let's read together.

So he agrees to the plan,

and then this is when Jacob is actually

taking the blessing away from his brother.

So it says Genesis 25, 29 through 34.

Let's read together.

One day, Jacob was cooking some stew.

Esau arrived home from the wilderness,

exhausted and hungry.

Esau said to Jacob, I'm starved,

give me some of that red stew.

All right, Jacob replied,

betray me the rights as a firstborn son.

Esau, look, I'm dying, I'm starving here,

like I don't care about my birthright,

just give me some food.

It sounds like Chris when he gets home,

and some of my kids, they just want to eat.

They just want to eat.

And so, what good is my birthright to me right now?

But Jacob said, first you must swear

that your birthright is mine.

So Esau swore an oath,

thereby selling all his rights

as the firstborn brother to Jacob.

So, Jacob's got Esau,

but Esau's kind of still oblivious.

He's out hunting, he gets his food,

he doesn't really remember it.

Okay, so fast forward a couple days.

Rebecca is cooking up more stew,

literally and metaphorically.

And Jacob applies fur to his arms.

So apparently, Esau was a hairy man,

he had hairy hands.

So, Jacob decided,

I don't think mom, dad's gonna really,

I don't have any hair on my arms,

I don't think he's gonna believe this story.

Okay, well what do you want to do?

Okay, let's go and get some hair

and attach it to your arms.

So literally, they are cocking and deceiving

the father and the brother.

So he attaches the hair to his arms, or the fur,

and the mom cooks the stew,

just like Jacob likes it.

And so, they go in and they trick the father.

Here we go.

Genesis 27, 21 through 24.

Then Isaac said to Jacob,

come closer so that I can touch you

and make sure you are really Esau.

So Jacob went closer to his father

and Isaac touched him.

The voice is Jacob's,

but the hands are Esau's, Isaac said.

But he did not recognize Jacob

because Jacob's hands felt hairy,

just like Esau's.

Hairy hands, that's my son Esau.

So Isaac prepared to bless Jacob.

But are you really my son Esau?

So Jacob's got so many opportunities.

How many times do we tell lies

and we have so many opportunities to get out of them,

but we keep saying the same thing

just to stay with the story, right?

He said, yeah, yeah, I am, I'm Esau, Jacob replied.

In the New Testament,

Paul communicates to the church at Philippi.

Philippians 2, 3 through 4 says,

do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,

rather in humility, value others above yourselves,

not looking to your own interests,

but each of you to the interests of others.

So Jacob deceived Esau for his owner interests

because he wanted the blessing.

He wanted to be the firstborn son.

I know growing up in my family,

I was the firstborn daughter

and my brother was above me

and I was like, I wish I was the firstborn son

because my parents still like held tight to that, right?

Or I wish I was a boy,

I would get all the attention, right?

Or I wish I was my sister, right?

You have that sibling rivalry all the time.

I've got two daughters who play softball,

so one is always compared to the other

and she's like, she doesn't know how it feels

to be compared to her, right?

We all go through things like this, right?

But we're not allowed to steal each other's birthright, right?

God wants to bless all of you, right?

Because he's a good father

and he's got plenty of blessings for all of his children.

So according to Jack White,

the song Seven Nation Army is about gossip.

It's about me, it's about Meg,

and it's about the people we're dating

and it's full of anger and rage towards those people.

Let's read verse one.

I'm gonna fight them off.

A Seven Nation Army couldn't hold me back.

They're gonna rip it off,

taking their time right behind my back.

I'm not gonna sing it like Elijah does, he's amazing.

So Jack is angry because of all the gossip

surrounding the band.

He just wants to play music,

he wants his music to be heard,

but he doesn't want people to worry about who he's dating,

who Meg's dating.

He's angry because he can't control people.

How many times in our life are we angry

because we can't control what people are saying about us?

We can't control people?

I don't know if any of you guys are a control enthusiast,

that's what they call him now.

I'm a control enthusiast, not a control freak, right?

I only like to know what everything's going on.

Just tell me, you didn't tell me about that?

Why didn't you tell me?

I didn't think I had to.

Well why not?

I'm a control enthusiast.

I can cheer you on if I know.

If I don't know, I'm not gonna be able to cheer you on.

So there's so many times we become that person, right?

We want control, we wanna know what's going on,

and that's what, he's just mad.

He can't control the situation,

he can't control the people,

and that's what happens inside our hearts.

We get mad, we rise up, we get angry

when we can't control people around us.

The irony of the situation is that Jack actually told a lie

that really caused a lot of the gossip around them.

It's later known as the white lie.

So when they first rose to fame,

the white stripes portrayed themselves

as brother and sister.

Jack always said Meg's my older sister,

we're playing in a garage band together.

So people would focus on the band's music

rather than the relationship between the two band's members.

But that made the band cool.

They were brother and sister team,

Meg played the drums, he played the guitar.

They were retro, indie, punk, garage,

whatever you wanna call them, right?

But then on March of 2001, the Detroit Free Press

ran a story that they were actually

former husband and wife.

They were divorced since March of 2000.

So Jack had really taken Meg's name, Meg,

it was Meg White, and Jack took her name,

so they were the whites, right?

But Jack continued to tell the lie,

no, that's my big sister Meg.

You know, that's my sister and my musical partner.

We've got passion together.

So you see, he was reaping the fallout from sin.

So that's our point two, we reap the fallout from our sins.

In verse two he says, I don't wanna hear about it.

Everyone's got a story to tell.

Everyone knows about it.

From the Queen of England to the hounds of hell.

And if I catch it coming back my way,

I'm gonna serve it to you.

He's angry, right?

Everybody knows about it, right?

Everybody goes and gossips around that, right?

I don't believe gossip is from God.

I don't believe gossip is a good thing.

But people start to talk, right?

Especially if you tell a lie.

Especially if you get caught in lies.

Galatians 6, 7 through 8 says, don't be misled.

You cannot mock the justice of God.

You will always harvest what you plant.

Those who live to satisfy their own sinful nature

will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.

Jack White wanted to sow in, I'm a cool band.

I wanna focus on the music.

I'm just gonna lie.

But he harvested the gossip that came with it, right?

And Jacob, he planted the seeds of deceit.

He tricked his brother, right?

And he's gonna harvest the repercussions of that.

We can't plant a tomato seed, right?

And expect a lemon to grow, right?

A lemon tree to grow, right?

So whatever we sow into the crops,

whatever we plant, we're gonna sow, right?

And it doesn't mean God doesn't love us

and God's not faithful and God's not with us.

Sometimes we make bad choices

and we're gonna have consequences from it.

We keep trying to teach Phoenix consequences of his choices

and it's not working too well.

I'm like, Phoenix.

He's four years old.

If you guys don't know, we have a Phoenix.

He's four years old.

And I'm like, Phoenix, I need you to listen to me

because if you don't listen to me,

then you're gonna get hurt.

So you've gotta, it's not healthy to watch

more than one show of TV.

We need to turn off the TV after one show.

Well, listen to me.

I wanna watch TV and I think it's good

and they're gonna rob the bank

and the guy's a fireman and I wanna watch TV

and I wanna go out and pee on the ground

and I don't care if people see my penis.

And I wanna be a dog.

The dogs get to go outside.

Why can't I?

Listen to me, listen to me.

I want this.

I want, I want, I want, I want.

How many times do we sound like Phoenix to God, right?

How many times do we want something

and not trust that God has got these beautiful boundaries

in place so we don't get hurt,

so people don't see our penis, right?

So how many times is that in place, right?

So there's reasons, there's reasons, right?

So let's continue with the story.

I'm getting a little sidetracked there.

So Genesis 27 through 35 says,

as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob

and almost before Jacob had left his father,

Esau returned from the hunt.

Esau prepared a delicious meal

and he brought it to his father.

Then he said, sit up father and eat my wild game.

So you can give me your blessing.

But Isaac asked him, who are you?

Esau.

Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably.

Uncontrollably.

His father had been broken by the lives of his son

and by the lives of his wife and said,

then who is it that just served me the wild game?

And I've already eaten it and I've blessed him

just before you came in.

And yes, that blessing must stand.

When Esau heard his father's words,

he let out a loud bitter cry.

Oh my father, bless me, bless me too.

Right?

But Isaac said, your brother was here, he tricked me

and he is taking away your blessing.

The whole family is affected by one person's sin, right?

Affected by this deception.

Esau becomes enraged.

He hates Jacob.

He plans on killing him, right?

Many of you guys are torn apart by your families.

Many of you guys are torn apart by other people's families.

Right, by other people's sin in your family

that has affected you for generations, right?

Your father, the sins of your father,

the sins of your mother, the sins of your family

have affected you and you're being left with the pieces,

right?

And so I mean you say, God, what's in it for me?

You know, my mom screwed up, my dad screwed up.

Why am I not gonna screw up, right?

But God's got bigger plans.

God's got bigger plans for you, right?

And this holiday today is a struggle for so many of you.

Some people here don't know who their father is.

But I'm here to tell you today,

you have a father who loves you completely, right?

You have a father who receives you regardless of your choices,

regardless of your mistakes, right?

So we run away.

When we make those sins, when we make those choices,

we run away, but we are always haunted by our past.

We try to run from our families.

We try to run from the things that hurt us,

but we are always haunted by our past.

Verse three goes, I'm going to Wichita,

far away from this opera forevermore.

I'm gonna work the straw.

I'm gonna make the sweat drip out of every pore.

So Jack wants to go to Wichita.

He wants to get away from music.

He wants to get away from his life.

He wants to go away.

And some of us are like,

if I can just get away from Hagerstown,

if I can just get away from Martinsburg,

if I can just get away from my family,

then I'm gonna be okay, right?

And he's like, I'm staying away from this opera.

How many times does a family seem like an opera in your ears

that you don't wanna hear, right?

Over and over again, really loud, right?

And he says, I'm gonna work the straw.

I'm just gonna work it out.

I'm gonna go and I'm just gonna get a common everyday job

and I'm gonna make the sweat drip out of every pore.

So Jacob, in the same way,

Jacob ends up fleeing the situation.

He runs away because Esau is gonna kill him.

And so he runs to his uncle Laban's house

and Laban has two daughters

and Jacob falls madly in love with Rachel,

who is the younger daughter.

And Laban's like, do you like her?

Yeah, she's your cousin, but I'll sell her to you.

I'm so glad I don't get sold.

Seven years of labor.

Okay, deal, deal, seven years.

Seven years of labor.

So in the Bible, seven is a significant number,

appearing more than 700 times

in both the Old and New Testament.

Seven symbolizes completion or perfection, right?

God created the world in six days

and on the seventh day he rested, right?

It represents divine intervention

and spiritual completeness.

Maybe that's why the rift of this song is so famous,

because it's seven notes.

And maybe it is a little bit of perfection, right?

When you're chanting in the ball field with everybody else,

it feels pretty perfect.

Genesis 29, 21 says,

so Jacob had worked for the seven years.

He had worked for Rachel.

He had sweat and labored.

He was getting away from the toil of being home.

He wanted to establish his family in another country.

So finally the time came for him to marry her.

I fulfilled my agreement, Jacob said to Laban.

Now give me my wife so I can sleep with her.

So Laban invited everyone in the neighborhood

and prepared a wedding feast.

But that night when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob.

Now Leah was the older daughter, right?

And he slept with her.

But when Jacob woke up in the morning, it was Leah.

What?

What have you done to me, Jacob Raged?

At Laban, I worked for seven years and you tricked me.

Guess what?

Jacob is receiving the same thing he sowed.

He tricked his brother.

And so he's receiving the same treatment from his uncle.

I don't know if it just runs in the family

or God's trying to teach him a lesson, right?

Right?

So he is receiving the things he sowed.

And so Jacob the deceiver is deceived.

His uncle goes ointment,

exploit him for another seven years.

He says, okay, yeah, but we marry our older daughters

off first.

So you worked for seven years.

You've got Leah.

So you work for another seven years and you can have Rachel.

And so Jacob agrees because he loves Rachel, right?

And so he works for another seven years.

He gets Rachel, but then he continues to work for him.

And God blesses him in this, right?

God blesses him.

He blesses him with sheep.

And he ends up working for 20 years for his uncle, okay?

So even though Jacob is away, he's in another country,

he's fleeing God, God hasn't forgotten him.

God is blessing the work of his hand

and God is preparing him, right?

He's sowing things in him as Jacob is working it out, right?

So finally he's so blessed, everybody's kinda like,

what's up with this Jacob dude?

He's got too many sheep.

We wanna kill him.

So basically they're like, oh, let's take his stuff

and get rid of him.

So Jacob knows people are getting mad with him

so he's like, I gotta get out of Dodge.

So I'm gonna take my wife, my crazy wives,

and their two servants,

because he slept with them too

because they were all competing,

and crazy children, and all my livestock,

and my insecurities, my fears for the future,

and I'm gonna head back to my hometown.

Sounds good, right?

So Jacob has nowhere else to go but home, right?

And so on the pre-chorus, Jack sings,

and the feeling from my bones is find a home.

So Jacob tried to find a home in a foreign country,

but God didn't allow him to stay, right?

How many of you know that God uses situations in our life

where we're trying to flee from other people,

God can use that for his glory, right?

So point number four is we wrestle with God

when he caused us to change.

We wrestle with God when he caused us to change.

Verse three continues, and I'm bleeding,

and I'm bleeding, and I'm bleeding right before the Lord.

Now, Jack White was a Catholic,

and so most people think that this was his Catholic

background referencing Jesus bleeding before the Lord.

He's bleeding because all these people

are talking about him, and he's,

he just is a distraught, and he doesn't know what to do, right?

How many times do we feel like

we're bleeding before the Lord?

How many times do you feel like I'm on my last leg, God?

I don't know what to do, right?

He's emptied Jacob out, right?

He doesn't know what to do.

And so in Genesis 32, 22 through 25,

during the night, Jacob's going home,

and so during the night, Jacob got up,

took his two wives, his two servant wives,

his 11 sons, and crossed the Jacobuk River with them.

After taking them to the other side,

he sent over all his possessions.

This left Jacob alone, all in the camp, and a man came.

So Jacob's alone at this point.

He puts everything that he has to the side,

and he's by himself, and he's going to face his brother.

He doesn't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

He doesn't know what's gonna happen on the other side,

but he's by himself, and he's like, God, what's going on?

How many times have we found ourselves in that place of like,

I don't know what's going on, God.

And we really need to wrestle with God.

We really need to work it out.

Well, guess what?

God counts in this situation.

It says,

this left Jacob all in the camp,

and a man came and wrestled with him

until the dawn began to break.

When the man saw that he would not win the match,

he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of his socket.

And the man said, let me go, for dawn is breaking.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go until you bless me,

unless you bless me.

What's your name?

And the man asked, he replied, Jacob.

Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him.

From now on, you will be called Israel,

because you have fought with God and with men and have won.

Hebrews 4, 16 says, so let us come boldly

to the throne of our gracious God.

There we will receive his mercy,

and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Jacob wrestled with God, and God changed his name.

He was no longer Jacob the deceiver,

Jacob the subplanter, he was Israel,

the one who wrestles with God and wins, right?

Right?

I have five younger brothers.

Have you guys ever been to a wrestling match?

There's some crazy ones on TV now.

But I grew up in the 80s and 90s,

and we liked the WWF back then.

We had Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, okay, right?

So my brothers all thought

that they were tougher than all those.

So every night when I sat down on my couches,

or every afternoon or whatever,

it was just like they'd fly off the couches,

they'd pretend they're the rings,

and they're just wrestling, right?

And Chris loves to wrestle with the kids,

but you know what, sometimes everybody gets hurt.

You like wrestle, and it's fun until you get hurt.

I'm like, somebody's gonna get hurt!

And I just remember my mom going,

somebody's gonna get hurt!

And I do the same thing at my house, and they do.

They get hurt, but they still do it, right?

But when we wrestle with God,

when we wrestle, Jacob got hurt.

He got his hip knocked out of place, but guess what?

He still held onto God, right?

It hurt, he went through pain, right?

But he still got his name changed.

He still received God's blessing.

So I'm not gonna say that you're gonna go through life,

and you're gonna feel perfect,

and everything's gonna be great,

and your hip isn't gonna get out of place,

or you're not gonna have to have a knee replacement, right?

I'm not saying that.

But I'm saying that when we wrestle with God,

when we wrestle with God,

it's important because he'll change our name.

We'll know our true identity.

Jacob's true identity is found in God now.

It's not found in his father.

It's not found in what he did.

It's found that he wrestled with God, and he won,

because God was there to bless him, right?

He wanted something from God, and he was desperate enough,

desperate enough to wrestle the whole night with him.

There's some of you in this place today

that you want something desperate enough,

and you need to go to God.

You need to go to God, right?

And point number five is we make peace by embracing humility.

The song concludes,

"'And the stains coming from my blood tell me go back home.'"

Go back home.

So Jacob decides, I'm going back home.

After he wrestles with God, after he gets his name changed,

he's like, okay, whatever, here we go, right?

His insecurities, his fears, it's all there,

but he's like, okay, God changed my name.

I am Israel.

I wrestled with God.

So let's read Genesis 33, one through four.

It says, then Jacob looked up and saw Esau

coming with 400 men.

So he was still a little scared.

His brother who was angry had lots of men,

because guess what, God still blessed Esau.

God still blessed Esau.

That's another part of the story,

but we don't have time for that today.

So he divided up the children among Leah and Rachel

and his two servant wives and put the servant wives

and their children at the front, and then Leah,

and then Rachel, who he loved the most, and Joseph last.

Then Jacob went on ahead, and as he approached his brother,

he bowed to the ground seven times.

The perfect number, right?

I wanna make peace with you.

I wanna live with you, right?

He bowed to the ground seven times before him,

then Esau rammed to meet him and embraced him.

He threw his arms around his neck and kissed him,

and they both wept.

Notice, as Jacob bows, it's saying, I'm done fighting.

I'm done struggling.

I'm done with the past.

I wanna come back home.

I want you to be my brother again.

I wanna see my father and my mother.

I'm done fighting.

Sometimes we're fighting with God so hard,

we just have to, and we wrestle, and it's like, come on.

Just accept the peace that he wants to bring with us.

Ephesians 4.3 says, make every effort

to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.

So what I'm asking you today is,

what anthem are you singing?

We're all singing something.

Sometimes we don't even know what we're singing.

We've been hypnotized by our own song, right?

We're singing the same song over and over

and over and over and again in my life.

I wish, I wish I could do that.

I wish I could do that.

Oh, my life is awful.

Oh, my life is awful.

Oh, I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough time.

I don't have enough time.

We see the things over and over and over to ourself,

and God wants to give you a breakthrough today.

Tell you what, when I went to Kenya,

I was floored, so humbled by the poverty,

the things I complain about with my food and when I eat.

I mean, you had kids eating a cup of porridge

and a thing of rice, and that's all they get all day,

and they were happy.

They were happy, and there's times I complain

about my food, I complain about my resources,

I complain about stuff, but you have kids

that are just starving, and they're happy,

and they're just putting on a, they're dancing.

They're dancing for me, and they're starving, right?

So it humbles you, and you see what you really have, right?

God, show me what I really have.

God, I may not have money, but what do I have?

God, I may not have health, but what do I have?

I have you, because God says I'm never gonna leave you

or forsake you, because I love you.

Are you angry?

Are you singing that anthem, the Seven Nation Army,

I'm gonna kill them, I'm gonna get them back.

They hurt me so bad.

I can't believe my dad, I can't believe my brothers,

I can't believe my family, I can't believe those people,

right, I can't believe my ex-wife, right?

Are you scared?

Are you depressed?

Are you hopeless?

Are you hopeless?

Are you masking guilt or shame?

Can you not get over your past?

Can you not give over the choices you made for your past?

Right?

But I'm here today, whew, so fun.

I'm here today to challenge you to make a change, right?

You need to revive those seven notes in your life.

Whatever anthem you're singing,

God's gonna give you a new one, it says,

this is the one God gave me, God loves me, and he,

I don't have a hand, God loves me, he knows my name.

God loves me, he knows my name.

So if you don't have an anthem to sing today, take mine.

God loves me, he knows my name.

So the first way to change your anthem is to stop running.

You can't escape.

You can't escape God's presence.

Jacob couldn't run away and escape God's presence.

Jack White couldn't run away and escape the news media,

right, if he wanted to do what he loved.

It says Psalms 139, seven through 10 says,

you can never escape from your spirit.

I can never get away from your presence.

If I go up to heaven, you are there.

If I go down to the grave, you are there.

If I ride the wings of the morning

and I dwell in the farthest oceans,

even there your hand will guide me

and your strength will support me.

You can't run away from God.

He's gonna meet you wherever you are.

So stop, stop running.

Some of you guys are really tired, right?

Stop running and turn to God.

Point two is wrestle with God and hold on.

You know, we don't have a black and white striped life.

It's not black and white, right?

We live in a complicated world.

Babies die, people we love gets cancer,

there's money, there's drugs, our sins blow up families.

Two people who love one another

use their kids as pawns to control each other.

What things do you wrestle with?

You know, I wrestle with,

you know, I lost a brother a couple years ago to drugs.

And I'm like, God, why?

Why my brother?

And I met with somebody this week that lost their daughter

after she had gotten healthy and she lost her again, right?

I talk to people all the time of lost loved ones

that they just loved and they still lost him anyway, right?

Why did we have to lose him, right?

Why did the enemy get in there?

Why did I have to lose my children before they were born?

You know, why is my son or daughter

choosing to not talk to me, right?

There's things we wrestle with God over, right?

And these are all important.

Anything that you're going to struggle with

is important to you, right?

And God wants to wrestle that out with you.

He wants to work it out with you.

It's okay because guess what?

He says, I will never leave you or forsake you.

He has seen every tear you've cried

and he holds them in a bottle, right?

We've gotta hold on to the fact

that God is good all the time, right?

God loved my brother just as much as I did.

God knew my brother struggles more than I did, right?

And he loved him and he loves me.

And things happen, people die, right?

And our hearts hurt.

And if our hearts didn't hurt,

that means we didn't really love, right?

Right?

What do you wrestle with?

It's okay to wrestle with God.

It's okay to wrestle with God.

Wrestle with God and hold on.

Even Jesus, the reason I know it's okay

is Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords,

wrestled with God.

Matthew 26, 39 says, he went on a little further

and bowed with his face to the ground,

with his ground praying, my Father,

if it's possible, let this cup of suffering

be taken away from me.

If it's possible, God, I don't wanna die on the cross.

I don't wanna go through this pain.

Yet, I want your will to be done, not mine.

That's what Jesus said.

So in my life, I say, God, I don't want this to happen,

but not my will, your will be done, right?

Use this situation for your glory.

If my brother had to die from drugs,

you help me use his story to change other people's lives,

right?

Not my will, but your will be done, God, right?

Not my will.

If my marriage has to die, God use my marriage.

Use my story, right?

If my, whatever happens, God use it for your glory

because God is bigger and God loves you, right?

Just because you go through pain and suffering

doesn't mean God doesn't love you.

Jesus, his own son, went through pain and suffering, right?

Some of you guys have been hurt by the church.

You're like, how can I go home with church

if this has happened?

You know, how can I move forward?

And I have an example for you.

In Matthew 15, 24 through 26, it said,

we have a Gentile woman who annoys the disciples

and Jesus calls a dog.

All right, Jesus, way to go.

He was perfect though, so obviously, I don't know.

Then Jesus said to the woman,

I was only sent to help God's lost sheep,

the people of Israel,

but she came and worshiped him, pleading again,

Lord, help me.

Jesus responded, isn't right to take the food

from the children and throw it to the dogs.

And she replied, that's true, Lord,

but even the dogs are allowed to eat the scraps

that fall beneath their master's table.

Dear woman, Jesus said to her, your faith is great,

your request is granted,

and her daughter was instantly healed.

Guess what?

She didn't care Jesus called her a dog,

she didn't care people in the church hurt her,

she didn't care the disciples,

she wanted healing for her daughter

and she would do whatever it takes.

She wrestled with God until she got her healing

for her daughter, right?

So people are perfect, right?

The disciples were perfect.

Jesus just communicated to her

what the Father had told him to do, right?

But her faith, her faith helped heal her daughter, right?

Point three is don't bleed, receive.

You know, many of us keep bleeding out,

just like the song, right?

I'm bleeding out, I'm bleeding out.

We put ourselves on the cross for our mistakes,

for our failures, if only I would have done that.

If only I wouldn't have said that.

Maybe my family would be together,

maybe this person would be in my life, right?

So we keep putting ourselves on the cross

and then we also keep that negative self-talk going

over and over and over again in our minds.

We run that situation over and over again.

But we read in scripture, 1 Peter 2, 24 says,

he personally carried our sins in his body on the cross

so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.

By his wounds, you, you are healed, right?

You are healed by his wounds.

Pam, you are healed by his wounds, right?

Eric, you are healed by his wounds, right?

Right?

Lance, you're healed by his wounds, right?

So I want you guys to take out your communion element today.

So no, just kidding.

Well, actually it's gonna be our communion element.

So do you guys know why the band

were called the White Stripes?

Anybody into your research?

You know, okay.

So Meg, who was a band member, loved,

I'm gonna put it in my mouth, loved peppermints.

And so she wanted the band to be called the Peppermints.

So could you imagine the peppermints singing

the Seven Nation Army?

It might not be quite as effective.

Well, in our true peppermint, there's white stripes in it.

So Jack's like, or whoever's like,

well, we could be the White Stripes.

So that's why they were the White Stripes.

So yeah.

So you all should have received a white stripe,

a striped peppermint today when you walked in.

And so I want you guys to look at it

if you don't have it in your mouth already,

or it's still in your pocket, right?

See that the red stripes,

when I see the red stripes on a peppermint,

I think about the blood of Jesus.

I think about the freedom I can receive

in taking that, right?

So some of you have a peppermint in your mouth.

Jesus says, here's my blood.

It's in your pocket, right?

And we don't put it in our mouth, right?

We don't receive it.

We said, no, I'm gonna hang on the cross.

I want people to feel bad for me.

I'm not good enough.

I've done so many bad mistakes,

and God's like, no, just receive my blood.

Just receive my healing.

Just receive my forgiveness.

But we have to put it in our mouths, right?

We have to make the choice to receive it.

I wouldn't know what this tastes like.

I wouldn't know what this mint tastes like

unless I put it in my mouth, right?

And the red stripes remind me of the blood of Christ, right?

And I'm trying to set this down

because I'm trying to show you something.

And once I receive it, the blood takes away my sins,

and I'm forgiven.

So, that'll have to take a little bit longer.

So, so I must have a lot of sin

that I need a healing from.

So, yeah, so as you begin to receive God's healing,

His blood will cover all those sins.

You need to ask for forgiveness.

Some of you need to ask for forgiveness from others, right?

Some of you need to forgive yourselves.

And so, that's what we're saying is,

God, forgive me for what I've done.

Forgive me for not being a good father.

Forgive me for hating my children for this.

Forgive me for being so angry with you, God, right?

Forgive me for just doing what the world tells me to do,

and I'm lying all the time.

So, once you do it, and you suck really hard,

it's clear, it's white, right?

Your blood, the sins are gone, right?

This is how God sees you.

He sees you pure and clean and white as snow,

and He's like, you're my child.

I can't see any fault in you.

I can't see any sin.

And then, you have to walk in it, right?

You have to walk in it, right?

Jesus wants us to come home to Him today.

If you haven't received Jesus,

if you haven't received that blood in your own life,

can we all pray together today to just receive,

to get healing, to receive forgiveness?

All right, let's pray.

Jesus, I'm broken.

Full of doubt.

Regrets.

Fear.

Change me.

Help me receive from you all that you want from me.

Help me receive your forgiveness.

Help me forgive others because you've forgiven me.

Help me walk as a person I'm called to walk into now.

Change my name.

Change my heart.

Make me new.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen, so once you receive that,

you need to live in peace and walk in humility.

So when the enemy tries to come in and say,

hey, you did this, you need to say no, that's a lie.

I'm covered by the blood of Jesus.

This is how Jesus sees me now, and you can't go back.

You can't go back.

Hebrews 12, 14 says, make every effort

to live in peace with everyone and to be holy.

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

So remember to check yourself.

So we don't just wanna follow when it comes to sin.

We just don't wanna follow the crowd, right?

We wanna be different.

We're called to not only receive Jesus, right?

We don't only just receive Jesus and receive healing,

but we walk towards him, we walk in his way.

We follow the way of Jesus.

That means we're honest.

We're gonna have tough conversations, right?

We don't fall into sin.

We don't fall into the easy route, right?

Don't be like my phoenix, right?

Don't fight against God.

Just say, okay, God, I choose the path, right?

I choose the goodness of God.

God gives us good boundaries because he loves us.

Don't be hypnotized by the world's anthems or standards.

Live in the light and follow the example of Christ.

Matthew 5, 9 says, God blesses those who work for peace,

for they will be called the children of God.

Guess what?

You're called the children of God when you walk in peace.

Micah 6, 8 says, people, the Lord has told you what is good,

and this is what he requires of you,

to do what is right, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with God.

Your new anthem starts today, people.

Your new anthem of peace and unity and love starts today.

Can I have all the men stand up,

all the fathers and all the men?

We're gonna pray for you today.

We're gonna pray for you today.

And if you have a man around you

that just lay hands on him, come on,

we want everybody to be surrounded by the love.

The world tears our men down.

The world, for a long time,

the world has torn men down for a while,

and it makes me sad because I love our men.

I love, there's so many good men.

We have so many good men, and you, yeah,

we have so many good men.

We have so many good fathers in here.

We have so many good men,

and we need to encourage our men

to be the man that God's calling them to be.

And the only way we can do that is by prayer, right?

The only way we can do that is by supporting them.

We're not perfect, right?

But we need to walk in God's way.

So let me pray for you this morning, all right?

Okay.

And this song that they're playing right now

is called Run to the Father.

This is a song about when we are scared,

when we are lonely, we turn back and we run to the Father,

and we fall into grace.

Some of you guys need to fall into grace today.

Some of you guys don't know who your father is, right?

But you do have a heavenly father,

and he loves you so much.

He loves you so much.

Holy Spirit, come.

Holy Spirit, fill this place.

God, we just pray over the fathers in this room today.

We pray over the men in this room.

They're stepping in as fathers.

We pray over all the men in this room.

God, I pray that they walk in their identity in Christ, God,

that you have called them as men to lead by example, Lord.

You have called them to lead through your anthem, Lord.

Let them not just slip into the world's habits for them.

Let them not slip into complacency or laziness

or just depression or hopelessness, Lord.

They have what it takes because they have you, God.

You are proud of them.

God, I just ask that you would just pour out

blessing upon blessing over the men in this room,

those who are watching online,

that they would know that they have a good, good father

who loves them, and that you are proud of them,

and that when you see them, he knows your name.

He knows your pain.

He knows what you've been through,

and he's there with you, right?

God doesn't promise his life's gonna be perfect

and things aren't gonna happen, but he promises you,

I will never leave you or forsake you, God.

So God, I pray that you would just show these men

in this room, God, where you are today.

I pray that you would bless them with your presence

and your peace, Lord.

I pray that as they live in your light, God,

as they walk in your ways, Lord,

you would just overflow them with goodness

and mercy and justice.

We just thank you and we praise you again in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen.

Amen, amen.

Thank you.