We continue our series, My Crazy Family, the story of Jacob. Jacob is a complex character – we would say in our day, “He’s a piece of work.” Jacob’s life is a Russian nesting doll with one conflict inside conflict inside yet another, conflict. What begins as a conflict with his twin brother Esau, moves to a vow with his father-in-law Laban. Both his brother and his father-in-law want to kill Jacob. And you thought your family had its problems?
Laban and Jacob place a heap of rocks down on the ground as a line in the ground (Genesis 31:51). If either one of them crossed it, it would an ancient version of Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. Yes, Jacob’s family life is almost continual strife.
Today, we see Jacob head toward home with his family. He has children from four different woman, ranging anywhere from preschool to a maximum of thirteen years old. After twenty long years away, Jacob is about to meet his brother again. Though it had been more than twenty years before, Jacob can still remember the anger of his brother that led Esau to vow to kill him. Little did Jacob know it but heaven was about to meet earth and Jacob’s life would never be the same.
This morning, I invite you to consider with me, “How do people actually have a life-changing encounter?” Is it near death experience that causes us to change? What would cause you to change? For real change to happen, three things need to occur …
Your Divided Attention is Captured
Your Stubborn Will Collapses
And Your Inner Nature is Laid Bare
Today’s Scripture
“The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.” (Genesis 32:22–32)
The book of Genesis hovers over this family because this is the one family that God has chosen to change all humanity through. The first part of Genesis teaches how humanity spirals downward but as you approach Genesis 12, the remainder of the book focuses on this family. God pours out tremendous blessing on this family. This family is the hope of the world.
1. Your Divided Attention is Captured
We are the most distracted we have ever been. We live in attention-deficit age, do we not? We have a cell phone in one hand and a steering wheel in the other. For many of us, we pay attention to God like we pay attention to the flight attendant when he/she gives us the pre-flight safety instructions. What would it take for God to capture your attention? Do you multi-task God? Do we listen to God while we tweet, read the paper, listen to the news, or snapchat with our friend?
God gets Jacob’s full attention. Jacob has ancient version of a “come to Jesus” meeting. Jacob is all alone. All the troubles of Jacob converge on him in one night. God finally has his attention.
1.1 The Sequence of Suffering
Jacob finds himself at a critical moment in his life in today’s story. There’s a tunnel that Jacob travels through and you have to look carefully for it. Old Puritan pastors would often speak of the morphology of conversion as the steps God goes through to convert a person to faith in Christ. It’s an amazing thing to consider how much trouble God puts into changing Jacob. Like strategically maneuvering chess pieces on a board, God has Jacob in the middle of stereo speakers – His grace and Jacob’s suffering.
1.2 God Shows Up
The first time God makes Himself known to Jacob was through a dream. It was insightful to see how Jacob responded: “Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you’” (Genesis 28:20–22). Real believers don’t bargain with God. So Jacob is in process but he has not arrived. I find this with many people today. A teenager is full of God during high school but moves away and God isn’t as powerful in his/her life as He was. Maybe the need for God isn’t the same in their minds as they age. Or maybe, God was more important for your friends than for you personally?
1.3 School of Suffering
Laban caught up with Jacob because Jacob left without every saying goodbye. “These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks. What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night”” (Genesis 31:38–42).
God combines His rich grace and suffering in an effort to illicit Jacob’s change of heart. Not only has Jacob spent the past 20 years suffering but suffering appears in his future too. Esau and Jacob haven’t spoken to one another in 20 years. The two had fought over ranking in the family as well as who got the most of their parent’s estate. And now, we are told in Genesis 32:6 that Esau was rapidly approaching with 400 men. This was a standard number for a regiment or raiding party. We are told Jacob is “greatly afraid and distressed” upon hearing this. The last thing he had heard from Esau was that he wanted to kill him. Now, twenty years later, Esau brings a small army with him. There’s nothing like a small army coming for you to focus your attention on God. There’s nothing like the big problems in your life that focus your attention on God. Rarely will you have an encounter with God until trouble comes and your relationship with God becomes your most important thing.
Look at Jacob’s Prayer for a moment: “ God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude” (Genesis 32:9–12).
Jacob’s prayer in these verses is the first recorded prayer of Jacob and it represents a real advance in his spiritual growth. His prayer both begins and ends with a focus on God. He “reminds” God of the promise He made to him: O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ (Genesis 32:9b). In other words, “I’m in jeopardy but I am only doing what you told me to do. I am returning back to the land you promised.” Had Jacob acted like this when he was younger, he would have avoided a lot of problems in his life.
2. Your Stubborn Will Collapses
Out of the middle of the night, a hand seizes him. Just exactly whom Jacob is wrestling with in the middle of the night is a mystery. Jacob is alone when he meets the mysterious “man” in what is today, modern day Jordan. There have been a lot of suggestions through the years but frankly, it’s the prophet, Hosea, who tells us that Jacob wrestled with an angel. Hours passed as the two battled. Was it six hours? Or seven hours of labored breathing, grappling for the upper hand?
As the morning light began to dawn over the horizon, the silent, nameless figure simply “touches” Jacob on the hip (Genesis 32:25). A “touch” tells us of the supernatural strength of Jacob’s assailant. The angel had been holding back his enormous strength in his battle with Jacob. Immediately, he reduced to a limping ragdoll, clinging to the angel with a dislocated hip dangling.
When I think of Jacob, I think of the phrase, Achilles Heal. Do you know the origin of the phrase, Achilles Heal? In Greek mythology, when Achilles was a baby, his other took young Achilles to a river which supposedly offered the power of invulnerability. There, she dipped his body into the water but she held him by his heel. When Achilles grew up, according to the legend, he survived many battles but was finally killed when a poisonous arrow shot him in his heel.
Remember, Jacob is a heal-grabber, a bargainer, a cheat, but he’s always been a wrestler. Jacob has wrestled all of his life. Even in the womb of his mother, Rebekah, he had wrestled Esau to the point she feared the boys were going to crush one another. He had wrestled with his brother, his father, his father-in-law and even his wives. And now, decades later, he’s wrestling again. Jacob had run from God at almost every step of his life. Jacob wrestles with God Himself.
Watch Jacob before the battle for a moment. The moment he thinks his rival and twin brother is about to attack him, he’s surprised to find that God is attacking. Now, watch how Jacob’s strength became his weakness.
Before the battle, He’s bargaining and planning to stall Esau. Note carefully this: Jacob sends a total 550 carefully-selected animals to Esau (Genesis 32:14-15). The careful selection of the animals is displayed when we learn that 490 of the 550 animals are female. He strategically spaces both the animals and servants in such a way that Esau will admire the animals and interact with Jacob’s servants (Genesis 32:16). All this achieves a layered effect like delaying the giving of Christmas gifts throughout the day. Slowed down by the retinue of caravans, all the servants are instructed to call Esau “lord” and refer to Jacob as Esau’s “servant” (Genesis 32:18). All this was done in an attempt to appease his brother (Genesis 32:20b). This is crafty, heel-grabbing Jacob at his best.
In the battle with God, Jacob needs to lose his power, his craftiness, and his scheming ways. It’s a telltale sign that after the battle, Jacob goes ahead of family alone to meet with his brother (Genesis 33:3). There were no more caravans of animals and servants, just Jacob alone with his enemy. In the battle with God, Jacob’s strong, stubborn had finally collapsed.
Do you know why God choose to battle with Jacob just before Jacob met with Esau? God was telling Jacob, “You’re battle has never been with Esau. You’re battle has been with me all along.” God is bringing everything together on Jacob on this night. This is Jacob’s conversion, his “come to Jesus” meeting.
3. Your Inner Nature is Laid Bare
The moment the angel cripples Jacob’s hip, Jacob knows who the “man” truly is.
3.1 The Power of Confession
It is important you see verse 27: “And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob’” (Genesis 32:27). In asking Jacob his name, we are watching Jacob make a confession. “Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me”” (Genesis 27:36)? Now, Jacob agrees with Esau.
Confession is always the first step toward God. Nothing can replace your first step with God – not giving money, not religious service, not even. Confession is admitting your weakness, your inner vulnerabilities before God. The morning dawn revealed a very different Jacob that sun had set on the night before. He was bruised, battered, bloodied and yes, even limping. But through the tattered clothes and his sweaty hair was man who had fundamentally changed.
Up until this point, Jacob thought his problem was Esau. He now realizes his biggest problem is Jacob. The truth for many of you this morning is this: you’ve been fighting God all along. As a result, Jacob is given a new name – Israel in verse 28 – he’s changed.
3.2 The Face of God
At the dawn of morning, Jacob’s nighttime assailant speaks for the first time: “Let me go, for the day has broken.” (Genesis 32:26a). Jacob had been surprised at dawn to find out he was married to Leah years before. Now, he has another nighttime surprise. The battle happened in darkness to protect Jacob. The Bible repeatedly tells us that no man can see God and live (Exodus 33:20). “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered’” (Genesis 32:30). Had God wrestled with Jacob in the light of day, Jacob would have been consumed by even his smallest glimpse of the face of God.
Conclusion
The amazing thing about this story is that God could have overwhelmed Jacob with His incredible strength. Instead, God withholds His power with us by grace. Like a father arm-wrestling his small children and letting them win, God deals with us in grace. Jesus took all His power to the cross and showed us grace. You are called to hold onto Him.
The Encourager’s Room – our staff and volunteers would love to meet with you personally and as family to help you navigate through your spiritual and family challenges.
