June 26, 2005 Episode IV - The Return of the Jacob - Genesis 31-32
The easiest position to play in the sporting world is that of the armchair quarterback. You don’t have to exercise. You don’t have to risk injury to your body. All you have to do is sit in a nicely cushioned chair of an air conditioned house and yell at a television. You can second guess everything the coach and players do without ever being put in a position of making a decision yourself or being in danger. What an easy thing that is! The problem is, that’s not what God calls us to be. He calls us and tells us to get out in the field! When I was a sophomore in high school, I had gone through the practices of pre-season for football. When it came to game time - and actually play against other opponents - I was actually somewhat afraid to get on the field. It was no longer time for practice - but time to put my neck on the line. I think that’s the way we often approach Christianity. We’re against abortion - but we don’t bother writing our politicians about it. We don’t want to put a bumper sticker on our car, because someone might key it. We want people to believe in Jesus , but we don’t want to risk telling them about Him. It seems like we like being the designated bench warmer - having the paycheck and the acclimates of being called a Christian, but not experiencing the dangers of getting out on the field. We have no excuse for this - unless you think God will count fear and laziness and old age as a good reason.
Throughout his life, Jacob certainly was NOT an armchair quarterback. He wasn’t afraid to get in the wrestling ring - even in the womb - and mix it up with his brother. Even though he was the younger, he wasn’t afraid to go after the blessing by using some porridge and sheepskin and lies in the process. Not only was he a wrestler, he was a dirty wrestler - a cheap shotter. He made mistakes - as we’ve seen. But at least he got in the RING.
Today, we see Jacob get in way over his head - as he gets in a wrestling match with GOD. The heel grabber seemingly has grabbed the wrong Heel! As we look at this wrestling match however, we’ll see how -
Jacob Shows us How to Conquer God
Psalm 2:2-5 states:
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath.
Conquering God- what a joke! GOD laughs at such a statement. Satan - one of the most beautiful and the best of God’s creation - tried to conquer God - and ended up in hell. The very thought of conquering heaven would earn anyone an equal judgment from God on high. Yet stick with me. Because Jacob - weak old Jacob - does that very thing.
By the time Jacob reached the shore of the Jabbok, he didn’t look like a man who was apt to wrestle with anyone - much less God HIMSELF. The old heel grabber seemed to still have a little bit of the schemer within himself. After having devised a way to increase his spotted flock and get a good inheritance from Laban - it appears that he thought he could win Esau over in no time at all.
Genesis 32:4-5 He instructed (his messengers): “This is what you are to say to my master Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’”
Notice that within this greeting Jacob referred to himself as Esau’s “servant” and Esau as his “master.” He showed respect to his older brother. He also notified him that he was not coming to claim any inheritance from Esau - God had already given him plenty. Having just received the assurance that angels were with him, he seemed to have thought this would be all that would be needed. The response of his messengers did not carry this confidence, however.
Genesis 32:6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”
Esau did not respond with any words. His silence was deafening. His power was scary. Four hundred men were coming - and Jacob - the heel grabber - was not ready for this fight. In “great fear and distress”, he split his family into two groups, in the hopes that if Esau destroyed one he wouldn’t get to the other.
When Jesus faced the terrors of the cross, the Bible says that He sweat “drops of blood.” His distress was not in the face of an angry man - but in the face of an angry God. He had a reason to respond in that way. He was about to go through hell. Jacob was only facing a man - his brother - and yet he responded in fear. It was much easier for him to grab the heel of Esau. Now that he was coming face to face with his rival - he was scared to death. What a weak man he was - especially in view of Mahanaim - the two camps of angels that he had just seen surrounding him.
As God sees us face our wrestling matches, we come off much worse. God promises us in Psalm 91:11-12 that, “he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Yet at the first sign of a struggle - we shake in our boots. The doctor diagnoses a little lump in your body, and you act as if your name were written on the grave. Your place of employment announces some future layoffs, and you act as if you were going to be evicted from your home the next day. You are confronted with a sin and you act as if there’s no way you can ever approach a holy God again. We are such cowards - so afraid of any wrestling matches. We pray, “thy will be done . . . as long as it doesn’t make my life difficult - as long as it doesn’t bring any guilt.”
Jacob didn’t want to face this wrestling match either. But he had no choice. He had to come to the realization that this reconciliation with Esau wasn’t just going to be handed to him with a simple sweetness. So Jacob did two things. He had a spiritual response and a physical one. Physically, he sent 580 animals to Esau in five separate groups - trying to appease him physically and show him that his humility and sorrow over his past actions were truly heart felt. But the spiritual response is what I want to focus on. The first thing Jacob did when he found out about Esau’s “response” - was to pray.
Genesis 32:9-12 “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”
You can see the struggle that Jacob is having in this prayer. He shows a deep humility as he calls upon the LORD - calling himself an “unworthy servant.” He shows fear over the prospect of his brother Esau coming and murdering his wives and children. Yet he also - throughout the prayer - clings to the fact that God COMMANDED Him to go back, and that God PROMISED him that he would prosper. He is struggling with God’s promise in view of what he saw with his eyes. His flesh and his faith were not cooperating with one another. So he took it to the Lord.
This was not the end of this struggle he was having - not by a long shot. After he and his family crossed the Jabbok River, Jacob went off by himself and began to pray again long into the night. Somewhere along the line during the night. This spiritual struggle that he was having with God - turned into a physical struggle. This is one of the most incredible stories in the Bible.
Genesis 32:24-32 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man 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.” 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.” The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 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.
This man that Jacob was wrestling with - Jacob recognized as God Himself. Yet Moses writes that “the man could not overpower him.” However, the text also declares that with just a touch he was able to take Jacob’s hip joint out of socket. How could this be? How could the Almighty God not overpower Jacob in a wrestling match? How could old man Jacob conquer God?
What did Jacob do? You might compare it to riding a wild bull. If you let go - the bull will trample you to death. All you can do is hold on for dear life! That’s what Jacob did. He held on to the fact that God had commanded him to come back - that God had specifically promised him that he would be the forerunner of the Savior - that his descendants would inherit the Promised Land. In the face of this coming disaster, He held to God in FAITH - and he wouldn’t let go until God REITERATED His promise to him - so that he would have the strength to fight on. Like a parent wrestling with a child - the LORD loved this persistence in Jacob. God decided to make Himself conquerable - allowing Himself to be held onto - and He loved the fact that Jacob wouldn’t let go. God wanted to be conquered - He wanted to give this blessing - otherwise He never would have gotten in the wrestling match with God in the first place.
This picture of a seemingly weak God shouldn’t be that shocking to us. The very picture of salvation we have is in a seemingly weak God. In the picture of Jesus we see God allow Himself to be punished by death, sin and hell - for a time. On the cross Jesus was overwhelmed by the wrath of His only Father - drowned in the sea of our sin - and buried in an empty tomb. It doesn’t seem right that the Almighty God would suffer, die on a cross and be buried. Through our eyes this doesn’t look like God - he looks like a weak man. Yet three days later we see that this God was not so weak - as He rises from the dead. Jesus left death, sin and hell in the grave - and earned our salvation through His “weakness”. Even though God seemed weak for a time - in the end God is not conquered - cannot be conquered - not even by His own wrath and hell. This is what God wants us to cling to in our weakness. Instead of running from the holy God because of our sins, He wants us STRONGLY CLING to the crucified and risen Christ. He wants you to hang on to that cross - that seeming weakness of God - with all your might - so that you aren’t afraid to meet Jesus on Judgment Day.
In this wrestling match with God and Jacob - we see how our LORD enters our arena at different times - and wants to get in a scuffle with us. With a case of the flu or a little hiccup in our relationship he pushes us around and says, “what do you think about that?!?” We feel like we’re being picked on by God. We start wrestling Him with questions like “why”? It’s at this point - if things don’t start getting better - that God forces you to get in the ring with Him. What I mean by that - is that He really wants us to struggle with Him. Look at what Job did, for instance. When God allowed things to go from bad to worse with him - he really started talking with God - saying things he normally wouldn’t say to God - genuinely irritated with God for allowing these things to happen to him - and he let God know it in his prayer life and speech. But as he struggled, he also realized that he had to cling to God’s promises.
Your relationship with the LORD needs to get down and dirty sometimes. The natural response we have as Christians is to be timid with God - because we feel such a sense of sin. We have no right or power to demand anything with God. So how often do you just find yourself giving surface prayers, “Lord, give us a good night’s sleep. Lord, please forgive me my sins. If you want, I would like some health.” Yet we need to remember that God has declared us NOT GUILTY on the cross. In God’s eyes we look HOLY through faith in Jesus. (Hebrews 10:10.) He commands us to pray to Him. He wants us to cling to His promises and be bold with Him. This boldness would be reflected in the man who prays, “Lord, I’m having a real hard time with Andy. He’s being a real pushy jerk. I want to punch him in the nose. Why did you have to make him my boss? You promised me you wouldn’t test me beyond what I can bear! This is really pushing my buttons. I need you to make me stronger! Either that or promote me over him! I can’t take this any more!” It means praying boldly for our congregation. Say, “Lord, you have promised that you are here where two or three are gathered. Bless our communion with each other. Help this congregation to grow in faith. Make us bold to proclaim Christ!” Start wrestling with God. Be bold with God. This would be arrogant - if God didn’t COMMAND us to come to Him and promise to hear us. But since He commands us to do these things - he wants us to get in these wrestling matches.
How did Jacob come out of this wrestling match with God? Genesis 32:31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Physically, he was whipped. Yet spiritually, he was a new man. Genesis 33:1 Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; . . . He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. Instead of running away from Esau, he met the challenge head on. Now that he had the blessing of the LORD, he faced Esau with a courage that God would work it all out for good.
It’s incredible what happens next. The two brothers had completely changed. Genesis 33:4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Over the twenty years, God had softened the heart of Esau. Instead of being a vengeful and angry man into a soft hearted and forgiving man. He forgave his brother for what he had done to him. God had also powerfully changed Jacob from a selfish heel grabber into a generous and humble little brother. God revealed His POWER through His seemingly weak wrestling match with Jacob and a twenty year flight to Haran.
I can’t imagine the emotion of the moment. The two kids who had competed with one another for 70 years, were finally at peace. Jacob said in Genesis 33:10, “to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably.” After this, the two parted ways. Esau, understanding and accepting the prophecy, willingly moved his flocks down to Edom. Jacob in the meantime ended up settling near Shechem. They both remained friends as they ended up participating in the funeral of their father Isaac. There were still continual problems to be dealt with in their families, but as for these twins - God worked it all out in the end.
Sit back for a minute and imagine how wonderful it will be for God to say to you - a sinner - “come and receive the inheritance prepared for you - by ME - from the creation of the world!” Is that something you want? To live with God forever? Then you need to wrestle with God.
How? There will come times in your life where God will seem to be picking a fight with you. You’ll be angry with Him, because you’ll feel like He’s angry with you - punishing you for no reason. You’ll be tired because you just don’t feel like you have the energy to go on. You’ll be scared because you know you’ve sinned against God and don’t deserve heaven or anything. What’s the answer? Cling to the cross. Cling to His promises of eternal salvation in Jesus. Wrestle with God - and HOLD ON TO HIS PROMISES FOR DEAR LIFE! He may throw your hip out of socket. He may allow you to have cancer. He may allow you to lose your job. You may come out limping. But as long as you cling to Jesus you will be victorious. You will know that you’re still holy and blessed because of God’s promise of salvation through faith in Christ. When we wrestle with God and are assured of our salvation - it gives us the confidence to face anything in life. It gives us confidence that even if we are conquered by men, that God has allowed us to conquer our fear of Him and conquer hell in Christ. In the end, we will be the conquerors in the Promised Land - just like Jacob. Amen.
