Fight Club: Reclaiming the Promises of God

I grew up in New York, had a dream to play in the NFL in 1982.

I was drafted to the Los Angeles Rams.

I have a younger brother who also played in the NFL.

He was a Heisen runner up in 87 from Syracuse University.

I have a younger brother who was a uh eighth-ranked boxer in the world.

And then I have two sisters, they ain't do anything.

They were very sweet ladies, but uh they just didn't have any little jukey juke.

They didn't have any athletics.

I don't even think they came to our games, they just kind of were doing something else.

But they're really nice, they're really sweet ladies.

Uh but yeah, they just weren't athletic, but they were very nice people.

But I got drafted in '82 to Los Angeles Rams, got cut, which means you get fired.

And then um went play for the Chargers four years.

First two years I was doing cocaine, uh, smoking marijuana, chasing women, running from women, was living really wild.

Um, and I was on a plane, team plane, doing cocaine on the team plane.

Started walking down the aisle of the plane, and we had a guy on our team uh having a Bible study on the plane.

Bible study airplane aisle was about that wide.

Sherman, which is his name, he was about that wide, and he was blocking the aisle, shared the gospel with me.

Uh a few months later, I was laying on my couch, five o'clock in the morning, and thinking about my life.

I was still playing, had done cocaine all night.

My heart was beating out of my chest, and I said, you know, I'm done with this.

And I gave my life to Christ.

Stopped doing cocaine that day, stopped smoking marijuana that day.

My wife and I got back together that day, and we've been married 31 years, amen.

And got three kids.

Amen.

Have three children and one grandson who's a year and a half, and he runs everything now.

We went on vacation, and it didn't dawn on me until we got to vacation that everything was going to revolve around his schedule.

When he eats, when he wakes up, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But he's he's a real cool kid, uh, real sweet kid.

Um, but I when I played in the NFL, we had a obviously a seven-day work week.

We played on Sunday, on an average week.

Monday was film and rehab day, you know, exercise, get a little exercise, a little run, rehab.

Tuesday was your day off.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are practice days, and our practices were three or four hours in meetings and films and taking tests and an hour and a half, two hours on the field.

And then Saturday was walkthrough.

Everyone say walk through.

Walk through means that is that you walk.

Okay?

They call offense out, they run their play, but actually they don't run, they just walk.

At most, jog a little bit.

No uniforms, sweats, no helmet, no tape.

You just go out there.

It's a day to rest your body, mentally go through the plays, but nothing real strenuous, getting ready for the game.

So we had a guy on our team named Woodrow Lowe.

He did not understand walkthrough.

He would tape up for walkthrough, tape his wrists, tape his ankles, tape his shoes on, and he's got his helmet.

Woody, you don't need your helmet, it's walkthrough.

We're gonna walk.

Nobody has a helmet, but he's out there full speed and walkthrough.

Now, walkthrough, you when you run a play, you just kind of step to the play, you know, go, I'm gonna go over here.

Just kind of going through the mental process.

He's like, boom, boom.

I was I was doing chapel for uh the Cowboys last night, and I was telling this story.

And as I was telling this story, because I said every team's got some guy who's always full speed.

And Sean Lee was in the in the meet, and all the players, literally, there were 20 guys in there, about half of them.

I didn't even, I didn't prompt, they just all looked at him at the same time.

Because I said, Y'all, there's probably some guy on your team like that, and they independently just started looking at him.

He's sitting there with his head down.

I was like, brother, there everyone's look, people behind you are looking at you.

I just need to let you know that.

But there's always some guy in the team, he doesn't understand walkthrough in full speed all the time when everybody else is just casually going through the motions.

There were so many Christians that are in walkthrough mode in their Christian walk.

You're just going through the motions.

I wonder how many of you went through the motions to get here today.

It's just kind of, it's Sunday.

I go to church.

So I go to church.

I don't know if you don't bring your Bible, maybe not a pen.

You just kind of going through tonight.

Maybe I'll put a little money in, maybe not.

Maybe I'll say praise the Lord, maybe not.

But you're just kind of casually going through life when the devil is taped up, ready to go.

He's never, ever in walkthrough.

He's always fighting a hundred percent conflict.

Like this.

And you may be going, well, he's not bothering me.

That's probably because you're walking with him.

You're you're you're you're doing exactly what he wants you to do.

He's got you thinking you're church perfect.

Church perfect is a term actually I heard for the first time, like a month ago, where you got the church vibe down, but you don't have the Christianity vibe down.

Christianity is about conflict, it's about war.

Today I want to challenge you to fight.

Take a deep breath in.

Say fight.

I want to challenge you to be a fighter.

That you're not just cruising through your relationship with God, though you are working your behind off to get money, to have sex, be successful, working to try to improve and to get in shape, to get your six-pack and your stomach and whatever, it gets you lose your weight, you're you're you're you're really all about all that.

But when it comes to God, it's like, hey, whatever.

No, no, no.

This is the fight that we need to be fighting.

So, in this story I want to read today, so we've got a story about a man named Jacob.

Everyone say, Jacob?

I'm a high, uh, high uh uh feedback kind of brother.

So in our church, if if someone says, Who's the man, in our church, people just yell out, Jesus?

Gotta yell it with a dip, okay?

Jesus.

You don't have to do the physical.

I don't want you to hurt something, but you it's just just kind of right here, right here, right here.

Jesus.

So if I say who's the man, y'all gonna say, Jesus.

You're like that, huh?

You just feel that, don't you feel that?

But you cannot, like, only we can do that on regular.

Uh you can just do it when I'm here.

If I'm not here, you can't do it.

Nah, for real.

You should just do it.

Because what we're gonna have in heaven, uh, Jesus and I worked this situation out where our church has a Jesus section in heaven.

So when y'all come, you can come visit.

Then go back to the gateway section, okay?

I'm sure your section's gonna be the bomb, but it's just not gonna be Jesus, okay?

So if I say who's the man, y'all say what?

Jesus.

Very good.

So I'm gonna tell you a story about a man named Jacob.

What's Jacob's name?

Say Jacob.

Very good.

Jacob had a brother named Esau.

Jacob stole Esau's blessing and he stole Esau's birthright, so Esau was mad.

Their father dies.

Esau says to his brother, After we all mourn our dad, I'm gonna kill you.

This is a true story.

Some of the stuff I'm gonna tell you, it's not true.

But I'll let you know when it's not true.

This is true.

So he says, When after we mourn our dad, he's telling his mother this.

After I mourn daddy's death, I'm gonna kill Jacob.

Because he stole my birth blessing and my birthright.

So his mother says to Jacob, You need to go get away because your brother's gonna kill you.

He runs away, and decades later, they're gonna get back together.

So now Jacob's very wealthy.

He has all these wives, all these kids, all these animals, and he's going to meet his brother Esau.

Hopefully, you know, after a bunch of years, that he's not mad anymore.

So he's going and he tells one of his servants, Go tell Esau I'm coming.

Just warn him, because I want to, you know, uh get soft in his heart, and just tell him I'm coming.

So Jacob's servant goes and tells Esau, uh, your brother's coming to see you.

No hard feelings, right?

And his servant comes back to Jacob and says, I saw your brother Esau, and he's coming to meet you with 400 Navy SEAL kind of kind of looking dudes.

He's got 400 soldiers with him.

So Jacob gets all scared, or well, how we say scurred.

He says, So he sends all his family, all his animals, all his servants, and say, just just give Jake, give Esau everything.

Make him really happy because he's gonna kill me.

And Jacob is left all by himself, and he's praying because he's scared.

Jesus is gonna show up, a man, capital M, an angel of the Lord is gonna show up, and they are going to wrestle.

Everybody say, wrestle.

He's gonna pray to get blessed, and he's gonna fight in prayer to get blessed.

And we're gonna learn some stuff about fighting in prayer.

So he's by himself.

Let's look at a matter of fact, let me read a couple things to you.

Fight.

Fight is a confrontation between opposing individuals or groups in which each attempts to harm or gain power over the other.

The devil is in a fight with you.

He is absolutely every day trying to think how to gain power over you.

Do you believe that?

You better live like it.

Because you can't fight him with your good looks.

Can't fight him with anything physical.

You can only fight him in the spiritual realm.

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12 and 13, our struggle or fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12

Therefore, put on the full arm of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.

When you get tempted, you'll be able to stand your ground and say, I'm not moving.

And when circumstances punch you in the face, I'm not moving.

When they stab you in the back, when they hit you in the leg, I'm not moving.

I'm gonna fight.

I'm gonna fight.

And after everything, you have done everything to stand.

1 Timothy 1 18.

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made to you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well.

Everyone say fight.

Say fight.

Genesis chapter 32, verse 22, it says, When he arose that night, he took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the fort of Jabbak.

Genesis 32:22

He took them and sent them over the brook and sent over what he had.

And Jacob was left alone.

And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

Say, wrestled.

He wrestled with him, he's fighting, he's wrestling in prayer, he's struggling.

What are you fighting for in the spiritual realm?

What are you fighting for?

What do you want?

Look what it says in verse 25.

It says, When he, the man, Jesus, saw that he did not prevail against Jacob.

He touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him.

So I want you to imagine they're wrestling, and and and I'm Jacob, this is Jesus.

He's wrestling, saying, Bless me, my brother's gonna come get me.

My brother's gonna come get me.

You gotta save me.

And Jesus like, get off me.

Maybe we didn't get to that point yet.

He says, Get off me.

Verse 6, he says, Let me go.

Everyone say, Let me go.

He says, Let me go for the day it breaks.

And he says, I will not let you go till you bless me.

So here's Jacob.

I'm Jacob.

This is Jesus.

He's wrestling with him and he's saying, Bless me, bless me.

And Jesus saying, Get off me, get off me.

He says, No, I'm not gonna get off you.

And he dislocates his hip.

Now, has anybody ever had anything dislocated?

Raise your hand if you had something dislocated.

Say, oh man, a lot of y'all, what's what's going on here in Texas?

Y'all out there.

Was it painful?

If it was painful, say yes on three.

One, two, three.

Yes, I dislocated my thumb.

I was real little kid, it happened real quick.

We popped it back in, boom, boom, boom, boom.

He dislocated his hip.

My two of my nephews who live here in Dallas wrestled in high school.

And now they're wrestling coaches.

And I was talking to one of them today about wrestling.

And he said, Your strength is in your legs, but your leverage is in your hips.

Your hips is where the strength in your legs is transferred to your body.

Without hips, you can have those strength.

He said, if you want to win the match, you have to control the hips.

If you can control a guy's hips, you can control him.

Jesus says, I'm taking your power away.

Not only am I going to take your power away, it's going to be painful.

So here's Jacob wanting a blessing.

He's holding on to Jesus, and Jesus, get off me, man.

No, no, not until you bless me.

What are you fighting for like that?

What do you want so bad from God that you would fight through dislocation, through inconvenience, through pain, through suffering?

What is it that you want?

You want salvation from someone in your family?

Fight.

You want to be set free from some addiction you have?

Fight.

You want to be set free from some stuff in your head that's wrong?

Fight.

You want power from God that uh Acts 1.8, you should ever see power when the Holy Spirit comes on you that you may be his witness, supernatural witness.

He puts the super in the natural, fight.

Don't just sit around and just it's gonna happen.

It's it's not just gonna happen.

It's just not.

He said, How much you want it?

When I met my wife, I was in college, she walked into the dance.

I never met her, I never seen her before.

She walked in.

I was standing with my friend.

I said, I'm gonna marry that girl right there.

He says, You don't even know her.

I said, You no, he no, he said, I'm gonna marry her just for competitive sake.

I said, Shut up, fool, you don't even know her.

I didn't know her either.

But anyway, I go up and ask her to dance, and she says, No.

I was like, girl, my all my boys are watching right now.

You cannot, you cannot say no.

So, anyway, she danced with me.

I that really she really did say no, so I kind of talked to him to dance.

But then later on, a slow record came on, and I wanted to dance a little closer, so I said, you know, you want to dance?

And she said no.

She did not slow dance with me.

Then the night end of the night came.

I said, Can I have your phone number?

This is before cell phones, for all y'all who remember those days.

She said, No.

I said, How am I gonna see you again?

She says, You'll figure it out.

Oh no, you did not.

You did not say basically what she was saying was, if you want all this, you gotta work for it.

I wanted all that.

I I I just knew this was gonna be my wife, so I went to the registrar's office and found out where her class was, and I stalked her, not really stalked, but I kind of showed up where I wasn't supposed to be.

God says, How much do you want what I have for you?

Come get it.

If I give it to you cheap, you won't appreciate it.

You'll misuse it, you won't understand it.

If you sit around just thinking you're gonna get it, you misunderstand the gospel.

Look what it says next.

He says, Verse 26, let me go for the day breaks.

He says, No, I will not let you go.

Can you imagine saying that to God?

No.

That's what God wants to hear you say.

God wants to hear you say, I want it.

I was born in New York, all my kids were born in California, and the California accent is a little irritating to me.

It's like we're going to the park, the car is on, it's just that little eh at the end of the sentence, it's just ah.

And so my kids, they grew up talking like that.

And one of the things that my kids grew up saying, which I would did not like them saying, I'm not supposed to say hate, so I won't say I hated it.

They would say, sure.

You want some ice cream?

Sure.

No, yes or no.

Sure means whatever you want to, whatever makes you feel good.

No, no, no.

I'm gonna take the ice cream all to myself then.

Do you want ice cream or not?

Yes or no.

Do you want all that God has for you?

Yes or no?

Yes or no?

I'm not, yeah, you can answer that, but I'm just saying hypothetically, yes or no.

It's not sure, whatever, God.

No, I want it.

I want it.

Then come get it then.

Some of y'all have been carrying burdens for years.

You want to get rid of that burden?

Let's go.

Look what it says next.

Jesus says, verse 27, what is your name?

What?

Here's Jacob.

Bless me! Ah, bless me, bless me.

I'm not gonna let you go.

And Jesus says, What's your name?

He's like, What?

What?

You already know my name.

Jesus is funny to me.

I uh he's hilarious.

He said, What's your name?

You don't know.

We've been here all night praying.

You don't know my name by now.

Here's what he was asking.

Uh Jacob, your name is your identity.

Your name is how people see you.

Your name has significance about you who you are.

That's how you see yourself as well.

What is your name?

He said, My name is Jacob.

My name is deceiver.

My name is manipulator, trickster.

That's who he thought he was.

That's how he lived.

What is your name?

Who are you?

Dumb.

Fat, stupid, failure.

These are all the stuff the devil puts in your head.

Second.

The bottom.

Less than.

I was out of prison once doing ministry, by the way.

Some of y'all kind of judge me right now.

I knew he had something wrong with him.

I was in prison in the prison and we were in the yard outside, and all these guys within the orange jumpsuits, all the white guys together, all the black guys together, Hispanic guys together, the Islanders and the others who were together.

How many of y'all have never been in a prison for any reason?

Just raise your hand.

You've never been there.

You need to go.

You do.

You know, just go out there and run into a police car, and then you'll get to go to a prison.

You need to go to a prison.

It is an amazing place.

In church, a lot of times I'll say, all have sin, and people are like, go to prison?

All have sin.

Amen, brother.

Get to the forgiveness part.

Amen.

They got it.

I'm in this prison, and all these guys are standing there in their orange jumpsuits, and right before I spoke, God told me, those are my warriors.

It's like, what?

I created all those guys.

And they have my image in them.

And I created them with courage, with strength, with intelligence, with fierceness, as my warriors.

And the devil got them.

And the devil poisoned them, and now they're living in an in cages like animals.

God created every single one of you as one of his warriors, one of his children.

And yet the devil got something in your head.

And you start to believe and hear lies about yourself, and then you settle down.

You live down to that.

And I'm saying, no.

Jesus says, Who do you think you are?

I want you to say it.

Say it.

I am dumb.

No, don't say that.

Just saying it helps you understand what's in your heart.

The Bible says the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.

If one word comes out, there's a whole bunch of words like it backed up, get ready to come out.

What's your name?

Deceiver.

I want you to understand what you think about yourself, Jacob.

You are not deceiver.

You need to redefine who you are, re-understand, re-educate who you are based on how I see you.

Look what he says.

He says in verse 28, your name shall no longer be Jacob.

You shall no longer be called deceiver.

You shall no longer be called manipulator.

You shall no longer be second.

You are now Israel, Prince with God.

That's who you are.

And every single one of you in here, you have to fight against the lies in your head.

There be sometimes I'm worshiping at Sunday at our church.

Get ready to go up to preach.

And all these voices, you're a failure.

It's not gonna work.

You're not ready.

I'm taking your church.

It's gonna destroy all this negativity in my head.

Anybody hear that kind of stuff?

Ever?

No?

You don't hear that kind of stuff?

You guys are way better than me.

Let's try that one more time.

Y'all really don't hear that kind of stuff?

Okay.

Here, let's let's back up a little bit.

At our church, one of the things we we vocalize.

So if I say who's the man, y'all say what?

Jesus.

Very good.

It was a little slow, but Jesus.

When you raise your hand, you take your elbow and put it above your ear.

None of this T Rex stuff, you know what I'm saying?

Before I could This in church.

I used to not be able to do this.

This is symbolic of surrender.

When the police point a gun at you, you show them your hands.

High and free.

I have nothing in my hands.

I surrender.

That's what this means.

It's the same exact thing with you.

Well in church, you do this.

You were saying to God, God, I surrender.

He's not pointing his gun at you, he's pointing his heart at you.

And you say, Yeah, surrender.

And I remember I couldn't do that because I wasn't free.

I would be like this.

And I would rock.

And you know, sometimes I give a little bit of a little bounce a little bit, but I do the wailing wall.

Hey, praise the Lord.

Then one day I was in the prison ministering, and I figured no one's gonna see me in here, so I'm gonna lift my hands.

But I did the T-Rex thing, I was like this.

I said, I gotta get to the point where I can be like this.

I don't worry about what anybody's thinking.

And so when we raise our hand, amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So how many of y'all had those voices in your head?

Let's raise your hand, elbow, now there we go.

Look at that.

Look at that.

All these jacked up people like me.

I feel better now.

I feel better now.

So I'm standing down here at our church before service, week after week after week, and it's not every week, but it's just all this negativity, all these lies.

And I have to get to the point where I go, that's not who I am.

That's not true.

And I literally get like this.

Sometimes I'll be like, oh, it's not true, it's not true.

And then yes, it is.

Oh, it's not true, yes, it is.

I'm like, no, it's not.

And I'll be like, worshiping like this.

And then we'll be singing a nice ha da la song.

And I'm like, yeah, let's get with it.

Matter of fact, in football, this is called a ready position.

They'll say, get in a ready position.

That means like this.

That means if I'm a defensive back, which I was, and your receiver standing in front of me, if I'm in this position, I can go right, left, back, straight, whatever it is, as fast as you can.

I'm ready.

You gotta get up in the morning every day.

Let's go.

Let's go, God.

Devil, what you got?

What you got?

You watch your your your cowboys play, you watch the defensive players.

They're the best players on the field.

Watch when they're like this.

I'm telling you for real, they're like this.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

Is that you say, no, I am not deceiver, I am prince with God, I am child of God, I am conqueror, I am a saint, I am a victor, I am forgiven, I am accepted, I have eternal life.

That's who I am, and I'm gonna fight, that's who I am, and every single day, every single day, you get up ready to fight.

Because rest for sure, whether the devil stands in front of you in your face with horns, which you will never see, he will have nice shiny teeth, nice flowing hair, nice little eight figure, eight-figured.

That's the devil.

The devil's I try to I try I try to go female male version, okay, if y'all notice that.

The devil, the devil, I'm not saying the devil's gonna be someone you meet, but the devil's not gonna show you ugly.

The devil's not gonna come and say, I'm gonna ruin your life.

He's gonna come and make false promise.

So, in a minute, we're gonna pray in all the campuses.

North Richland Hills, correct?

North Fort Worth.

Grand Prairie.

Frisco's the easiest one.

In all the campuses and all the overflows, we're gonna pray in a minute, and then I'm gonna ask you to just stand where you're at.

You're gonna stand saying, I'm ready to fight.

Whatever your fight is, it's a relationship, it's a lie, it's a false identity the devil has given you.

It's to be what Christ created you to be, to get all that God has for you.

So, right now on all the campuses, I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

I just want you to listen very carefully.

Coming here, there was a dead U.S.

soldier on our plane.

And they told everybody on the plane, don't get up when we land, we have to take the casket off and honor the fallen soldier.

He gave his life fighting.

Jesus gave his life.

We need to give our life.

There are many of you out there, you need to start your fight, you need to continue your fight, you need to take your fight to another level.

For some of you, that means I need to start praying more, I need to start, I need to increase my commitment to God, I need to surrender my whole heart, not just part of my heart.

And for some of you, that means recommitment, some of you that means salvation.

You've never asked Christ to be your savior ever in your life.

So I just want you to pray this prayer with me, one prayer.

In the privacy of your heart, you don't need to pray it out loud, it's gonna be very short.

Dear God, I surrender my whole heart.

I want to fight to hold on to you and to apprehend everything you have for me, to secure everything you want me to be.

Jesus, be my savior, my Lord, my master.

Eyes closed, heads bowed, and five seconds.

I'm gonna ask you to stand if you prayed that prayer.

If you prayed that prayer, you surrendered your life to Christ, you're ready to fight for Christ, and I want to challenge you to be bold now and stand on the count of three.

One in all the campuses.

One, two, three.

Stand to your feet.

God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.

Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness, we thank you for your power, we thank you for your love, and we pray for all the campuses of this great church in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.