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Spiritual Warfare

Get Behind Me, Laban!

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Get Behind Me, Laban!

And so we being our message today with Jacob on the run again fleeing from a family member, but this time he is fleeing not so much from the consequences of his own sin, but from this worldly exploitation back to God, back to God’s call, back to God’s land, back to God’s promise. So how would I describe Jacob’s spiritual life at this point? I’d say he’s a follower of God, who has some understanding of how God has blessed and protected him over the years, but who has sadly spent most of his life as a follower of God more captivated to the world’s values and conflicts than the life God offers and provides. Maybe many of you can identify with Jacob in that way. And so this is a message on how to break free.  


This is what I’m most interested in this story of Jacob and Laban, for there are principles and a paradigm here that extends beyond a simple blow-by-blow account of these two men. God is doing something spiritually in Jacob’s life through these years, and God may similarly be doing something in your life, that you my find encouragement and hope and courage this morning. Courage to break free from the bondage to sin and to conflict that has robbed you these years.

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Engaging the World's Battles

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Engaging the World's Battles

How and when to engage in the worlds battles. We are to be a people separated. To know when to engage in the battles around us takes a great deal of wisdom. Those from the political right and the political left want to drag us in to their battles. The world ever rages around us. What are some of the ways that the world rages around us, they all ultimately have to do with power. 

  1. Political battles

  2. Popularity battles

  3. Promotional battles

  4. Preference battles


Genesis 14 contains an account of this first and great war of the Valley of Siddom, as a continuing example of a great theme of Genesis: that the inhabitants of the world, having severed their ties with their Creator, rage against one another in cycles of violence and oppression. Chapter 13 ends with Abram settling by the oaks of Mamre, peaceful in worship, and we will find halfway through this chapter that Abram is living a life of peace and prosperity so that his household has continued to expand, yet during this period of peace in Abram’s life, the world is raging around him.

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