Jacob Deceiver and Dreamer Series
“Brokenness: Me, You, Jacob, and Other Cracked Pots”
Genesis 32
Introduction:
I read the story about an old Texas Cowboy who decided to apply for an insurance policy.
As he walked up to the insurance office, the agent noticed that he was walking with a limp so he decided to ask a few questions besides his name and social security number.
As he looked at the old rugged cowboy he asked, “Have you ever had any accidents?” The old Texas said: “Nope, I’ve never had “no” accidents.”
Probing a little further the agent said: “Well I just wondered because I noticed that you have a slight limp.” The cowboy said: “Oh yea, that’s because I was thrown off my old bronc last year, I broke two ribs, and dislocated my hip, and while I was laying there a rattlesnake came up and bit me on the ankle.”
Puzzled, the agent said: “Wouldn’t you call all of those accidents?” The cowboy looked at the agent with a strange look and said: “No! The way I figure it, they both did it on purpose.”
Explanation:
Have you ever stopped to consider that some of the trials and tests that come your way are not an accident? Did you know that by design God targets our sin and often even crushes us under the weight of it?
As Christians, God does not let us delight in our sin for long. He love us too much to tolerate it. He wants too much for us to discard it. Therefore, God uses our circumstances to break us.
Jacob provides a perfect picture of this activity called “brokenness” in our lives.
Jacob was a man that wrestled with everyone. As he was being born, he literally had a “foothold” on his brother Esau.
Jacob wrestled with his own desire for the birthright and the blessing; so through deception he schemed to get his way and thought he won.
Yet, one wrestling match only led to an additional one with his father-in-law Laban who was a schemer and deceiver himself.
Finally, Jacob returns in Genesis 32 to the promised land for a final wrestling match; this time with God, and God broke him.
Transition:
Let’s face it: We all wrestle with God one time or another. We wrestle with His will and ways. Sometimes ever so secretly, we doubt, wonder, what He’s up to in our lives. We want to take over the owner’s manual and change a few chapters, and make a few tweaks to His will.
Yet, God never loses a wrestling match. So can I ask you: “What are you wrestling with today?”
Whatever it is, I promise, if you belong to Jesus; He’s not giving up; He is working up to something great in your life.
He is using brokenness.
So through Jacob, let’s discover what God is up to in our life today in whatever you are wrestling with. Let’s enter the ring of Jacob’s tussle with God and tangle with God for a moment and settle the score on brokenness.
Transition: Jacob teaches three ways God blesses brokenness:
I. God Is Present; Regardless Of How You Feel
Vs. 1-2- “Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s camp. So he named that place Mahanaim.”
Explanation:
Psalm 34:18 says: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who have a crushed spirit.”
As we meet Jacob today, we find that he returns to Canaan and his spirit is being broken. God has a plan for Jacob but Jacob loves control of his own life.
I am not saying that Jacob did not know God; yet whether Jacob knew it or not, He had never stopped wrestling with God. He wanted God’s blessings; that’s why He was returning to Canaan, but wanted them His own way.
Perhaps this picture will help you understand Jacob. He was like an unshelled pecan. He had a tough outer shell that had to be broken.
Every one of us are like an unshelled pecan. We have an outer shell and exterior that the Bible calls “the flesh” that keeps the fruit of God’s Spirit hidden in the hallows and halls of our heart. Yet, God uses many things to break that outer shell and bring out the best in us.
God knew the potential of Jacob but also knew how stubborn and self-focused He was. Are any of you like Jacob?
If so, you are a prime candidate for brokenness. Consider these questions:
a) Why are we stubborn? - We often want to live independent of God’s authority in our lives.
b) Why are we faithless?- We often want to depend on our own power instead of God’s.
So God allows Jacob’s stubbornness to break him. Yet, don’t miss this important point. God is always present in your brokenness. He’s like a surgeon; He is always present from the beginning to the end of every surgery.
Every painful incision is intentional and purposeful. He looks intently into every detail of the masterful circumstances of your life, and with laser fine precision, he makes every move to ultimately remove that which is unhealthy, and bring healing. He does not waste the struggle.
Therefore, notice what leaps off the page in verse 1-2: “Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s camp. So he named that place Mahanaim.”
Mahanaim means: “double camped”. Basically he is saying: God is camping out with me. He’s made my place; His place.
Illustration: Camped with God
In his book Angels, Billy Graham relates the story told by Reverend John G. Paton, a trail-blazing missionary in the South Pacific in the New Hebrid Islands. He is often called “the missionary to the Cannibals.”
One-night Paton and his wife found themselves threatened by hostile natives who surrounded their mission headquarters camp.
The Paton’s thought for sure that the natives would burn down the headquarters and kill them both. They prayed throughout the night asking God to protect them from harm. The next morning they were astonished when they realized that the natives had gone away. They had no idea where or why they had left. The missionaries again prayed and thanked the Lord for saving them.
About a year later, the chief of the native tribe who had threatened them became a Christian. He came to visit the Paton’s. When he was asked about the incident, the chief told the Paton’s that he and his men were too fearful to carry out their plans of attack.
They had seen an army of giant men in “shining garments with drawn swords in their hands” surrounding the mission grounds. Paton and the chief agreed that there was no explanation other than that God had sent angels to encamp with them.
Application:
Paton learned that even in the midst of very trying circumstances, God made His camp with Him.
Psalm 34:7 gives us the facts saying: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.”
In verse 7 discover what Jacob was feeling in the inside. It reads: “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed....”
Jacob was headed back down the road to Canaan, but it was a broken road. It had been about 20 years since Jacob had come down that road. His mind was fixated on the past instead of the God who was presently with him.
Therefore, he was “greatly afraid” and “distressed”--- how about you?
Is the mile marker you are on at this season in your life a foreboding thing? Does the road seem more like a gravel or dirt road; verses a broad smooth surface?
If so, in your brokenness, God wants you to know that God has set up camp around you. He is present; no matter how you feel.
God will never allow you to go through brokenness alone. It’s just the way He is.
Transitional Sentence: The second way God blesses us through brokenness is:
II. God’s Has A Redemptive Plan; Not a Backup Plan
vs. 6- “The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to meet your brother, Esau, and furthermore, he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”
Explanation:
It is interesting that despite the fact that Jacob had a divine encounter with a group of angels that God dispatched to minister to him that he still struggled with doubt.
By the way, when Jesus was distressed following the temptations of the devil; God the Father dispatched angels to minister to him as well. Yet, the way Jesus responded to the ministry of angels and the way Jacob responded are totally different.
While Jesus trusted His Father’s plan; Jacob was looking for a backup plan.
In verse 6 we read why. Jacob had sent his messengers ahead to meet up with Esau and to gain “favor” (vs. 5) for him and the messengers returned in saying: “Esau is headed your way with 400 men.” (vs. 6)
Do you know what 400 men headed your way looks like? It looks like an army. In US Army terms; its 4 platoons! Several platoons is called “a battery” in army terms.
In response, verse 7-19 tells us that Jacob immediately did several things:
a) First, he divided his people, flocks, and herds
b) Second, he started praying. (This is the first recorded prayer of Jacob in the Bible)
c) Third, he prepared a parade of presents.
Do you see what Jacob is doing? He is doing what we all have a tendency to do. We sandwich prayer between our plans. I call this a “prayer sandwich.”
Do you know what a prayer between a bunch of plans generated by fear and worry does? It leaves a bad taste in God’s mouth.
You know you have gone to the prayer deli if you pray and worry all at the same time. That’s where Jacob went with this thing. He prayed a little and worried a lot and in reality; he prayed like God has a plan but He trusted in his own plan.
Do you know how I know this? He said it! He prepared an insane gift parade for Esau with wave after wave of gifts and he said: “I will appease him with the present that goes before me....” vs. 20.
Did you here that, “I will appease”--- he was trusting in his gifts more than God. He prayed by didn’t really mean it. He might as well printed on all his treasures and every gift the words: “In Jacob I trust.”
Illustration: Farmer in NY City
I read about southern farmer who went to New York City a few years ago. From his accent and International Harvester hat, it was obvious that he was not a city man.
Yet, what set him apart the most was that one day he sat down at a sidewalk café, ordered a sandwich and prepared to eat. Yet, before he took a bite, he bowed his head and prayed.
Nearby was a group of people who had partaken of a few adult drinks that heckled him and said: “Hey Pops! Where you come from does everybody pray before they eat?” Without blinking an eye they farmer said: “No, actually, the hogs don’t.”
Application:
Well, Jacob was praying but his words weren’t going far. His prayer was full of panic.
He said He trusted God, but acted like he didn’t. In turn look at the gift list he provided for his brother
Verse 12- This is an insane gift list. I studied this and discovered that someone calculated the value of this gift”
200 female goats @ $163 = $32,600
20 male goats @ $177 = $3,540
200 ewes @ $340 = $68,000
20 rams @ $541 = $10,820
30 female camels with their young @ $10,000 = $450,000
40 cows @ $700 = $28,000
10 bulls @ $1700 = $17,000
20 female donkeys @ $1500 = $30,000
10 male donkeys @ $1500 = $15,000
Total: $654,960 for over 500 animals.
Let me ask you a question: If you have a brother, what did your brother buy you for Christmas?
Jacob was competing for brother of the year award wasn’t he? Do you know why? I remembered the last words of his brother were basically. “I’m going to kill you.” Jacob did not want Esau’s last words to lead to his own last words.
Jacob is struggling with who to trust: Himself or God.
Do you struggle with the same? Are you currently working on a backup plan for your problem but came to church to pray today, if for no other reason; for good measure?
Listen: Maybe God is breaking you. Maybe He is trying to reveal Himself to you. Maybe, like Jacob He is wanting to teach you to trust His plan instead of your back up plan.
George Mueller said: “The most important moment of prayer is 15 minutes after we pray. It’s then when you discover whether or not you just prayed in faith.”
The gift is a sign of good favor, but also an example of how we try to make things happen instead of trusting in God.
The reality is that Jacob refused to truly trust in God.
Transitional Sentence: The third way God blesses us in brokenness is:
III. God is Our Father; But He Makes Us Cry “Uncle”
Vs. 22-32- “...and crossed the ford of Jabbock. He took them and sent them across the stream. And sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
Explanation:
After Jacob’s lame prayer meeting followed by a lavish gift parade, God made Him realize WHO and WHAT he was really wrestling with.
Notice how God sets up this wrestling ring:
a) He had him cross a stream called “Jabbok”- The word “Jabbok” means: “pouring out, or
emptying.”
b) He had come empty handed- vs. 23- “He sent across whatever he had”- The way he met
God was the way he left Canaan years ago- empty handed.
c) He left him alone- (vs. 24)- No one else involved. Jacob couldn’t tag out. Got the stuff
he depended on out of the way.
Notice, God prepared the wresting ring. Before he would return to Canaan, he would have to be stripped down to the same condition in which he left. No wealth, no family, no servants, no body guards. Just him and God.
It was then, that we read: “A man wrestled with him until daybreak.” This is the first recorded wrestling match in history. Long before there was “Hulk Hogan”- “The Rock-Dewayne Johnson”—“Andre the Giant”--Rick Flair and Jesse Ventura--- there was Jacob the Patriarch- who wrestled with God.
This appearance of God is called: “ A theophany.” It is a physical representation of God in the Old Testament. Most believe this is actually the second person in the Trinity—none more or less than Jesus Christ.
Do you know what is happening here? Jacob didn’t know who and what he was wrestling with. He met this man and perhaps thought he was wrestling with Esau who had hunted him down and jumped on him from the shadows. He hadn’t seen Esau in 20 years!
Yet, that’s not who he was wrestling with at all. He was wrestling with God. Are you?
Hosea mentions that Jacob had been wrestling with God all his life. It reads: “In the womb, that heel, Jacob, got the best of his brother. When he grew up, he tried to get the best of God. But God would not be bested. God bested him. Brought to his knees...” Hosea 12: 3-4 Message.
God needed to break Jacob to change Jacob. He was self-contained and self-made man and now something changed.
In verse 25 we find that suddenly God touched the socket of his thigh and suddenly disabled him. In any fight, most would have suddenly realized that they were done for. Yet, God did not kill him, instead, God revealed something to him.
Instead of striving with God, he simply hung on to God. He actually held on to God as he was in a submission hold.
Illustration: Submission hold
Do you know what a submission hold is? It’s basically that moment when someone says: “Uncle! I give up! Or” Let go you are hurting me.”
Application:
Yet, Jacob does something here that is significant. He knows he’s in a submission hold and suddenly realizes something. He knows that this is a spiritual moment because his opponent isn’t after death; He’s after something bigger; HE IS AFTER LIFE.
Realizing this a divine moment, in a divine wrestling match, he immediately asks God to bless him.
Amazingly, God does and renames him: Instead of being called Jacob, that means “trickster, sup planter, or cheater.” God names Him Israel that means: “prince.” In other words, He no longer King of His life; He’s a prince, living in close relationship with the King. In this case, the King of the Universe. Yes, King Jesus.
That morning, Jacob walked away with a limp. It seems that this was consistent for the rest of his life because in memory of the moment, his offspring have ever since refused to eat the muscle on the hip bone in remembrance of what God did to their forefather Jacob. (vs. 32)
Conclusion: God’s grace is sufficient for you
Have you ever injured your leg, ankle, or foot and walked around with a limp? Have you ever had to use crutches? Do you remember what happened? Everyone asks you: “What happened?”
Jacob had a story to tell didn’t he? Yet, here’s the point, he limped away that next morning with a new name and a new walk did he not?
When God breaks you it’s for a purpose; it’s to get you to the point where you lean on Him.
Jesse Ventura, former wrestler and Governor of Minnesota, once said, “Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.” Agreeing with him is pornographer Larry Flynt, who commented, “There’s nothing good I can say about it [religion]. People use it as a crutch.”
Well, today, I invite you to join the “crutch and cracked pots crowd” who have come face to face with Jesus and discovered how much we need Him. His Word says: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” II Corinthians 12:9
Jacob, joined the crutch and cracked pot crowd; he walked with a limp.
Moses, joined the crutch and cracked pot crowd; he stuttered.
Paul, joined the crutch and cracked pot crowd, he had a “thorn in the flesh”
God’s grace was sufficient for them and I assure you; it will be sufficient for you.
