Wrestling with God, Part 2

Genesis 32v25-32

23^rd September 2022

Last time, we began the story of when Jacob wrestled with God on the north bank of the River Jabbok. He was on his way home, but first he had to reconcile with his brother Esau. However, God prevented him crossing the river, and they wrestled until daybreak.

Genesis 32v25
When the man [that is, God in human form] saw that he could not overpower him [Jacob] he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

In your life as a Christian, in your wrestling with God, I expect you have experienced pain, possibly physical pain, possibly relational pain, possibly emotional pain. If you're a Christian who's serious about God, I'm sure you have known moments of huge pain. This text tells us that God - the man wrestling with Jacob - injured him. God made Jacob limp.

This may not be how you usually think about God, and the Bible doesn't tell us why He did it, but I think part of the reason is this: If Jacob was going to become the man of God his destiny required, if he was going to have the character consistent with his responsibilities, he needed to limp. Every significant Christian leader, every truly mature saint I have ever met limps, one way or another.

God didn't injure Jacob because He didn't love Jacob, but because He did.

God breaks every Christian sooner or later. There's a well-known old story about two older ladies listening to a young man preaching. After the meeting,as the ladies are leaving together, one asks the other, "What do you think of the new preacher?" and the other says, "He's not bad, but he'll better when he's suffered". She was right. We can't preach the kingdom of God if we're not broken. We can't heal the sick if we're not broken. If we think we can do such things in our own strength, we'll achieve nothing. It's only in God's strength that we achieve anything of spiritual value.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul tells the story of the time God refused to heal him. God told Paul, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12v9). Although God still heals us today (more than many people realise) that principle is true for all of us. It's particularly true for Jacob and people like Jacob, people who think they're strong, or who try to be strong, and here's the good news here: We haven't got to try to be strong. God is strong. We can afford to be weak. Indeed, we need to be weak if we're going to be truly used by God. How much Christianity is wasted by us trying to be clever, trying to have strength of personality, trying to be persuasive, trying to achieve, when actually all we have to do is trust God?

Genesis 32v26
Then the man [God] said, "Let me go for it is daybreak".
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me"

God urged Jacob to stop fighting against God. And in that moment, Jacob changed from wrestling against God, to holding on to God to seek His blessing.

Here, Jacob gives us a pattern for really powerful prayer. Sometimes we pray and we pray and we pray and nothing happens. And some of us give up, and some of us say to God, "I'm not going to stop praying this until you do something". And I think God loves that commitment in prayer.

You may know the story of St Augustine's mother, who prayed for him to be saved for nine years. She would not give up. And he became one of the greatest theologians in history. Many, many Christians can tell a similar story.

Genesis 32v27-28
The man [God] asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.
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."

God's blessing for Jacob began with a question, "What is your name?" Jacob had to say, "Well, my name is Jacob. My name is twister. My name is grasper. My name is swindler. My name is cheat".

I think the moment comes to us all when God asks us, "What is your name?" which really means, "Who are you really? What do people call you?" If you want to get serious with God, get on your knees and tell him who you really are. Confess your self-image, and the image others have given you. Admit to God the cruel things people have said about you, and how much it hurts, and how it's shaped you over the years, as it shaped Jacob.

God's response to Jacob's confession of his sinful nature was, "Your name will no longer be Jacob. Your name will be Israel". God gave Jacob a new name, and God wants to give you a new name. God wants to acknowledge what He thinks about you, to replace what the world says about you with what God says about you.

We call ourselves the new Israel. Jacob is our patriarch, our father-figure, just as Abraham and Isaac are. And Jacob's name in God's sight is Israel, which means, "He wrestles with God". So, if your patriarch is "He wrestles with God", don't be surprised that you wrestle with God.

Inheriting God's blessing is not easy, and the harder you try to inherit his blessing, the harder it gets, until it becomes impossible, and you cannot cross whatever is your river Jabbok. It's when you submit to God in wrestling, and when he makes you limp, that you can inherit all God has for you. We need to repent of being strong, and embrace being weak. His grace is truly sufficient for us.

Genesis 32v29-30
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."
But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Peniel means "The face of God". Jacob knew that he'd experienced God's amazing grace. That night changed his life by changing his self-image.

For the rest of his life, Jacob would limp, and I imagine that every step he took cost him. Every step hurt. Sometimes it seems that every step you and I take serving God hurts. But Jacob's pain for a purpose. It was to remind him of the time he encountered God in a life-changing way. It reminded him that he was no longer the man he used to be. He was no longer grasper and cheat. He was "Man who wrestles with God". Who would you rather be?

May our difficulties remind us of our need for God, and may we call to mind the times we have encountered God, and known His blessing.

I love the poetry of the next verse:

Genesis 32v29-30
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

To truly follow God is to allow God to cause us to limp, but it's not just physical. Most of us limp emotionally, don't we? Most of us have lost something really wonderful. It's the cost of putting God first. We say, "Seek first the kingdom of God". The Kingdom of God is more important than Jacob's hip. It's more important than anything. In particular, it's more important than the idea that we can achieve anything of any value by our own strength.

Jacob limped into his inheritance, but he received his inheritance by God's power and God's wisdom, not his own.

Genesis 32v32
Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

The Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, understood the significance of this story, and commemorate it by leaving that part of an animal uneaten. May we also understand the significance of this story, in which Jacob finally became a godly man because God broke him.