Mario Murillo: I Will Not Let Go Until You Bless Me (Genesis 32:26)

00:06 - He could fight that in private. You can fight it.

00:11 - You can drown it in drugs and alcohol and sex.

00:14 - You can drown it. You can drown it in philosophy.

00:18 - You can keep adding information. You can keep playing a video game.

00:23 - You can do all of these self-medication forms, both electronic and chemical, but something happens when you’re in the presence of God.

00:32 - (congregation amens) That’s what happened to Jacob.

00:36 - Jacob was okay, but then God stood in front of him, and when God stood in front of him, he saw his life.

00:47 - Sometimes standing in the presence of God is like a full-length mirror.

00:53 - All of a sudden, everything Jacob said, “I am sick of yearning for truth.

00:59 - I’m sick of wanting to be vital. I’m sick of not knowing who I am. “ And now here’s God, and it removed every distraction.

01:14 - God is at work in you. He’s at work in you because He’s telling you right now.

01:19 - You know very well that you not having Christ is the root of all your pain.

01:26 - (congregation amens and applauds) Not knowing God, forget your professor at the university.

01:34 - They’re nothing but bullies. I want to say to ‘em, why don’t you pick on somebody your own size? (congregation amens) Why don’t you come at me with that stupidity that you write on the blackboard, you that destroy the hopes and the ideals and try to turn the world into one gigantic mass of accident that crawled out of the primordial soup.

01:57 - We are not, we are made in the image of God.

02:00 - (audience applauding and cheering) you’re made with desire.

02:03 - You’re made with ideals. We are different.

02:08 - There’s a spirit in us. You were meant to live forever.

02:14 - (congregation amens) “I will not let you go unless you bless me. ” You know, you and I, we could be over here at Starbucks.

02:27 - You could be somewhere in a restaurant. You can go in your day-to-day job, and the vibration of that inner desperation can hide, but then, all of a sudden, you get in the presence of God, and in the presence of God, you begin to believe and understand.

02:43 - I wish, for one reason, the flesh says, that I was not in the presence of God because it turns up the volume of my true condition.

02:54 - It reminds me what’s really goin’ on inside of me.

02:57 - I hear the storm. I feel the pain. I’m under the weight of the guilt.

03:02 - I have it all. I feel it all. And Jacob said, “I can’t take it anymore. ” Now, there is a conundrum here.

03:12 - There’s a mystery, a contradiction, and it bothered me, because the very touch of the tip of the finger of God dislocated his hip, but God still couldn’t break free of Jacob’s hold.

03:26 - I thought, if you’re strong enough to dislocate a hip with a touch, how are you not unable to let go those hands and tear ‘em apart, because that’s not what was holding Jacob to God.

03:40 - You see, God cannot resist the cry of one of his children.

03:45 - (congregation cheering and clapping) He was gripped by a cry.

03:50 - God heard him and he said, “I won’t let you go. ” It wasn’t his body that was holding him to God.

03:56 - It was his spirit. It was his appeal. And that’s your hope.

04:01 - You that are on heroin, you that are in a gang, you that have no future, this is your hope.

04:07 - God will hear your cry. (congregation cheering and clapping) Let me say it again.

04:13 - God will hear your cry. This poor man cried to the Lord and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all of his troubles.

04:32 - (congregation amens) Oh, I know the modern church.

04:36 - It’s messed up. It’s messed it up so bad. I want no emotion in church.

04:43 - I want no loud noise in church. I want church to end on time.

04:48 - I want church, and all the active ingredients of conversion are summarily removed from the house of God.

04:55 - It’s that stumbling up to the front. It’s that falling on the altar.

05:00 - It’s that crying out, maybe for hours. It’s that miracle of, I know that I know that I know that I must have Jesus.

05:09 - I must have Him now. I must have all of Him.

05:13 - I must have Him without reservation. I’ve got to have God, and Jacob said, “I won’t let you go until there’s peace.

05:22 - I won’t let you go until there’s joy. I won’t let you go until my con artist ways are ended. “ (congregation cheering and clapping) Bow your heads, close your eyes.

05:37 - This really isn’t the sermon for tonight, but it’ll have to do for now.

05:48 - Do you know what you’re crying out for? Mario, I would like to have the ability to be convicted everything’s going to turn out okay.

06:02 - I would like the ability before God to know that everything’s going to be okay.

06:10 - I’d like to know that any choices that I make that are destructive, whether it’s a needle in my arm, whether it’s powder in my nose or a pill under my tongue, that I’m not dependent on it anymore.

06:24 - I don’t have to drink it, smoke it, inhale it or inject it because the Holy Spirit has taken over my life.

06:33 - (congregation amens) If you’re here tonight, there’s a cry to end your loneliness.

06:47 - There’s a cry for peace. There’s a cry for a new life, and I’m going to tell you one of the deepest cries, and I don’t want anyone to move when I tell you this one.

07:03 - You used to serve God. Those were the happiest days of your life.

07:09 - Then some boy or some girl or some thing came between you and your discipleship, and it wrecked it, and you found yourself doing the things you vowed to God you’d never do again, and that wasn’t the disaster.

07:29 - The disaster was when Satan came on top of that and said, “Because of this, you can never go back to God.

07:37 - Because of this, you can never again have the peace you once had. “ That was the real lie.

07:47 - I’m about to ask you to put your hand in the air.

07:52 - I’m about to ask you to put your hand in the air if you have a secret cry for value and meaning and truth and life, and you’re willing to say, “I have failed.

08:05 - I have rebelled. I’ve done, I’ve gone my own way.

08:09 - I’ve done what Isaiah said. All we like sheep have gone astray.

08:13 - Each one has turned to his own way, and I am filled with the fruit of my bad choices.

08:23 - And Mario, something in my life feels so complicated and tangled and broken that I can’t possibly imagine ever having peace with God. “ You see, here is the secret.

08:40 - It’s the presence of God. You see, when Jacob finally got a hold of God, God’s reality was greater than his own belief that he could never find hope.

08:52 - It’s because he was so convinced that God had the power to give him what he needed that he wrestled with Him.

08:59 - Now, you don’t need to do any of that because, on the cross, Christ paid the price.

09:05 - Jacob did not have the advantage of the cross.

09:09 - The work of the cross had not yet happened.

09:12 - So, he had to rely on a depth of agony that is not needed for you because you can just say, “Yes, Lord, yes.

09:24 - I want peace. I want forgiveness. “ I’ll tell you what you really want, power.

09:33 - The Bible says, “To as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become a child of God. ” Power to make right choices, power to forgive, power to let it go and embrace the truth.

09:49 - All right, with no one looking around, I want to say a prayer over you.

09:55 - I want to pray over you. I want you to listen to me.

09:59 - I want to pray for you and you’re going to pray and I’m going to pray together, and that’s going to release a miracle.

10:07 - Matthew 18:19 and 20 says, “If any two of you shall agree as touching anything, it will be done, for wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. ” Imagine you and I, taking a hold of that promise and that power.

10:28 - Mario, pray for me that God will forgive my sin.

10:33 - Pray for me that I will know Jesus. Pray for me that I will be restored from my separation from God to a new life.

10:44 - Pray for me, pray that I will get that right now.

10:48 - If you want that prayer, if you want to join me in prayer for that new life, to be born again, to become a new creation, to be restored to God, raise your hand right now wherever you are.

11:00 - - [Congregation] Hallelujah, hallelujah. - Put your hands up.

11:05 - I want everyone that raised their hand to stand up right now.

11:08 - Get up on your feet. Those of you that are outside the tent, listen to me very carefully.

11:17 - If you’re outside the tent, I want all of you to know that just because you’re physically outside the tent, you are not detached from this meeting in any way, shape or form.

11:29 - Now I’m going to ask you, if you’re out there.

11:32 - When I ask you to come to the front, don’t you dare think that it’s just for the people inside the tent.

11:38 - We’re going to wait for you. I don’t care how far you are away from me.

11:43 - I’m going to wait for you, but before I do even that, tonight, I’m going to release a thousand evangelists.

11:52 - If you are here, and you brought a friend, a loved one, somebody that you know should have stood up and they did not, I want you to lean over to them right now and say these words to them.

12:06 - “Would you stand and receive Christ if I stood with you? We’ll stand up together and we’ll do it right now. ” Get them to stand.

12:16 - There they, over here over here, it’s happening everywhere.

12:21 - (congregation clapping) Stand outside over here, over there, over there.

12:26 - These are the people that sometimes we will miss if we’re not careful.

12:32 - Who else will stand up? Mario, I don’t have anyone beside me to help me stand up.

12:37 - Well then, God will take you by the hand. Get up on your feet right now if that’s you.

12:44 - (congregation clapping) Now everyone that is on your feet, find the nearest aisle.

12:48 - Remember, I’m going to wait for you. Find the nearest aisle and walk up here to the front of this tent right now.

12:54 - Every step you take is a step toward life. Come. Don’t wait for someone else.

12:59 - You start. You come from here. (congregation clapping and cheering) Keep coming.

13:16 - Come on, we’re waiting for you. Get up out of your seat.

13:20 - You know you’re on the edge with deciding. Do it now.

13:24 - Come and join us. If this doesn’t move you as a believer, you need to get right with God.

13:38 - (congregation amens) You say, “Mario, that didn’t do anything for me. ” Then, get up out of your seat and join them ‘cause you, you need to repent.

13:44 - (congregation cheering and clapping) Help them, workers, help them fill in along the side here.

13:52 - Get ‘em down the aisle. I want them as close as they can get right now.

13:55 - Workers, let’s do that. (voices muttering) All of you that are down here, look at me.

14:13 - How many of you have a cry in your heart? How many of you want God to transform you totally? (congregation clapping) Put your hand over your heart.

14:25 - Everyone in the audience, point your arm toward these people.

14:29 - I need the body of Christ to act like the body of Christ.

14:35 - There’s still people out there that should be up here and you’re not, and you’re going to hate yourself for it tonight.

14:44 - This is one more episode in your life where you promised yourself something, and then you destroyed it.

14:51 - Get up out of your seat and come down here right now.

14:54 - (congregation amens) I want you to be a part of this miracle.

14:57 - Come, wherever you are, come on, come on. (congregation cheering and clapping) Come on. I know you’re here. .