A Holy Wrestling Match
Have you ever wrestled with someone bigger and stronger than yourself? Needless to say, it isn’t a pleasant experience, since you are generally destined to lose. All of the tricks in the book, including trying to curl up and keep the other person from flipping you over and pinning you to the mat are pretty much useless.
On the other hand, if you have ever wrestled with your child, you probably never intentionally overpowered your child. You let him know who was boss, but you let him struggle and try and most parents would give their child a feeling of hope…that maybe, just maybe, I can beat Dad this time.
Some of us are familiar with the story of Jacob, the son of Isaac, and the grandson of Abraham. He is a twin of Esau, and had stolen his brother’s birthright through deception and cunning. His brother plotted to kill him so he fled, living with his uncle and serving his uncle for 14 years to gain the hand of the woman he loved. Now he is coming home and is approaching the land where his brother lives. He is afraid, because he believes his brother will take revenge for his deceit years earlier. The story goes to where we pick it up, where Jacob sends messengers to his brother to see if he is still angry enough to kill him.
Genesis 32:3 Jacob now sent messengers to his brother, Esau, in Edom, the land of Seir. 4He told them, "Give this message to my master Esau: ’Humble greetings from your servant Jacob! I have been living with Uncle Laban until recently, 5and now I own oxen, donkeys, sheep, goats, and many servants, both men and women. I have sent these messengers to inform you of my coming, hoping that you will be friendly to us.’"
6The messengers returned with the news that Esau was on his way to meet Jacob—with an army of four hundred men! 7Jacob was terrified at the news. He divided his household, along with the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps. 8He thought, "If Esau attacks one group, perhaps the other can escape."
9Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my grandfather Abraham and my father, Isaac—O LORD, you told me to return to my land and to my relatives, and you promised to treat me kindly. 10I am not worthy of all the faithfulness and unfailing love you have shown to me, your servant. When I left home, I owned nothing except a walking stick, and now my household fills two camps! 11O LORD, please rescue me from my brother, Esau. I am afraid that he is coming to kill me, along with my wives and children. 12But you promised to treat me kindly and to multiply my descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore—too many to count."
Narrative:
I believe that Jacob is a desperate man.
20 years has passed since Jacob has seen his brother. Jacob is still manipulating but finds himself helpless before his now stronger brother who reportedly has an army of 400 men waiting to meet him.
He is finally brought to his knees, to pray and ask God to remember His promises to Abraham. His prayer is a prayer of desperation. It is in this time of need that he is willing to examine his life and see the need that only God can meet.
Perhaps you have come to such a place in your life. Maybe that is where you are now. You are facing ruin, perhaps sickness or financial disaster is looming over your life.
You have run out of options. You have exhausted all of your strength and ability. Nothing you have done seems to work. And now your back is against the wall. You may have asked God for help up to this point, but you really haven’t depended fully upon Him. You still had some strength left. You still had some options left. You still had some ideas. But now, nothing is left. Just you and God.
(Jump to Verse 21)
21So the presents were sent on ahead, and Jacob spent that night in the camp.
22But during the night Jacob got up and sent his two wives, two concubines, and eleven sons across the Jabbok River. 23After they were on the other side, he sent over all his possessions. 24This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn. 25When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket. 26Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is dawn." But Jacob panted, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
27"What is your name?" the man asked. He replied, "Jacob."
28"Your name will no longer be Jacob," the man told him. "It is now Israel, because you have struggled with both God and men and have won."
29"What is your name?" Jacob asked him. "Why do you ask?" the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.
30Jacob named the place Peniel—"face of God"—for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." 31The sun rose as he left Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32That is why even today the people of Israel don’t eat meat from near the hip, in memory of what happened that night
1. Narrative
a. Desperate Jacob sends his family and his possessions off to safety. It is almost as if he is planning on encountering God that evening by himself. He is intentionally alone and in that solitude, he meets a man who wrestles with him until dawn.
2. We Wrestle with our Will and Pride.
a. The man that Jacob meat that night, by even Jewish accounts, is a manifestation of God Himself.
i. Christian commentators describe him as a prefigure of Christ.
ii. Jacob and this man “wrestle” until dawn. .
b. We should recall some things about Jacob.
i. Jacob’s very name meant liar, cheater or conniver.
ii. He had used his wits all of his life to succeed and get out of tough situations.
iii. And even as he prays, desperately for God’s help, he is still holding out to use his wits, as he sends his family across the river
iv. In Jacob’s mind, God couldn’t be trusted to carry out His own plans unless He had a little help from Jacob.
v. So, Jacob kept interfering. He was hoping to gain by stealth, what God had promised.
1. Some of us do that…we try to give God some help in a situation.
a. We pray for something and then make a few phone calls and work the situation to make sure our prayer gets answered.
vi. At the root of all Jacob’s deceit was pride and self-will–Jacob had a whole lot more confidence in himself than he did in God.
1. And it’s that underlying self-delusion that God had to break.
vii. That’s why God wrestled with him. He struggled with him, until day break.
1. All through the night God struggled with this obstinate, prideful man.
2. And all the time–for hours–Jacob refused to give in.
viii. When God first began this struggle that night with Jacob, he began struggling gently, patiently, and perseveringly through the dark hours of the night.
1. God was pleading with Jacob.
2. Matching His strength to Jacob’s strength.
3. But Jacob had no intention of giving in.
ix. So, God did what He could have done at the beginning of the struggle, but chose to wait until it was necessary.
1. He used FORCE.
2. He touched the socket of his hip.
3. And the single touch of the finger of God, was enough to overcome all the power of Jacob’s resistance.
x. This wrestling with Jacob is a picture of God putting down Jacob’s (and our) old nature.
1. And with a dislocated hip, Jacob had to give up the struggle.
2. This dislocation left him with a permanent limp.
3. The Bible tells us later that this was to remind him that God had overcome him.
xi. Something else happens as a result of this wrestling match.
1. Jacob gets a new name. This new name is the result of the positive action that occurs as he is overcome by God’s power.
3. We Wrestle to Walk by Faith (rather than by sight)
a. Eph 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
i. This is the second struggle that Jacob went through.
1. It is the common struggle that we all go through. I
2. It is always much easier to wrestle with the things we can see.
ii. In Jacob’s case, he was preparing to meet his brother Esau, but instead, encountered God. This was the birth of faith in this Patriarch of the Israelites.
1. Jacob was conquered by God, he had his hip dislocated, he was beaten.
2. And yet he does something very unusual. He holds onto God despite being in incredible pain. He has lost the wrestling match, but he holds on to his opponent.
3. This is because Faith holds onto God even when the pain is unbearable.
a. I have known people who let go of God when their lives get too painful. But that is when we all need Him the most.
b. It is the truest test of your faith when you don’t let go of God.
4. Genesis 32:26
Then he said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27
5. So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." 28 He said, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed."
6. 29 Then Jacob asked him and said, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And he blessed him there.
a. Jacob clung to the Divine wrestler. He had fought all night. He had lost. He was hurt. God had clearly won. But in recognizing now who He was wrestling with, he holds on.
7. This is a radical departure for Jacob.
...In place of trickery he now exercises faith.
...In place of deceit he is straight dealing with God.
...In place of manipulation there is perseverance through prayer.
iii. In this process, his name is changed. God changes Jacob’s name, to symbolize something new.
1. So, you see, in making Jacob pronounce his name, the God-man here calls him to submission and confession.
2. It may at first appear that Jacob has God by the throat and is forcing him to bless him - but no such thing.
3. The man says, what is your name?
a. “Confess what you are! Lay open your character first.
b. And so he answers - and it is a confession really
c. “Jacob” - Ya’gov -“the Cheater.”
d. So he’s struck down for a life of lies and second by admitting he was Jacob, “grabber and deceiver,” he was for the first time confessing his true character.
e. But this confession, statement of who he is leads to a change of life.
4. You and I must confess who we are (sinners) before we can experience a change of life. We need to express with our mouth that we are sinners in need of a savior. And Jesus Christ changes us inside out.
a. Rev. 2:17 ’He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give {some} of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’
b. We get a new name too, if we conquer and walk by faith.
iv. The Blessing comes from God when we Prevail and Persevere. Jacob was said to have Prevailed…or Persevered. The calling upon the people of God in Rev. 2:17 is to overcome or Persevere. Perseverance is the mark of faith!.
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4. We wrestle to Watch and Pray.
a. As you probably guessed, Jacob used up his entire night, he lost a night of sleep to spend it with God.
i. When was the last time you stayed up an entire night to spend it with God?
ii. Have you ever had a need so great, so deep, that you were willing to stay awake an entire night and spend it seeking God’s face?
b. Jesus did it at least once that we know of. The night before he selected his disciples.
i. Luke 6:12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God
c. On the night before he died, Jesus told his disciples to “watch and pray”
i. Matthew 26: 38 Then He *said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me." 39 And He went a little beyond {them,} and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." 40 And He *came to the disciples and *found them sleeping, and *said to Peter, "So, you {men} could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 "Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
d. If you have ever tried praying for an hour, you know you do battle with your flesh. If you have ever decided to “have it out with God” then you know you won’t stop your pursuit of Him until you have gotten your answer.
Or perhaps you have struggled with the answers God gives to your prayers?
5. We wrestle with the question “Why, God?”
a. This whole episode is an answer to Jacob’s prayer for God to save him from Esau.
i. No army of angles with flaming swords to go ahead and handle Esau, but a midnight wrestler who helped Jacob realize that God alone had the power to change events and hearts.
ii. It was as if Jacob prayed for God to change Esau, or to change the circumstances, but what God changed was his very nature.
1. Jacob had an encounter with God that transformed him.
2. You and I often pray that God would change the person with whom we have conflict with.
3. But the person who God changes is US!
4. If you have ever prayed that God would change your spouse or your child, because you are struggling with them; you might be wise to take heed to this lesson…
a. God, change me so that I can get along with this person.
iii. The former coward who hid behind his family now limps ahead to face his brother and four hundred armed men… alone
iv. The next day Jacob would cross the river to meet his brother broken, re-named, blessed, and authenticated.
1. And I think that this story demonstrates the unpredictability of God’s answer to prayer.
2. Jacob prayed for help against his brother, and God sent an attacker who left him crippled.
3. While this sounds severe, Jacob was a crafty person, who needed a change of heart and character before he could truly experience God’s power and destiny in his life.
b. Why is the answer to prayer so often different than the request?
i. Sometimes we wrestle with God’s difficult answers to our prayers.
ii. God is the sovereign Lord of all reality.
iii. God is on no one’s leash. .
iv. There are times when God answers our prayers with a parting of the seas, with an almost miraculous easing of the way.
v. But there are other times when He answers us with toughness and hard, hard challenges.
vi. He is more concerned with what we are to become that what we want.
1. We want help; He wants for us wholeness.
2. We want prosperity; He wants for us maturity.
3. We ask for success and fame; He wants for us to experience integrity instead.
4. We ask for pleasure; He wants for us joy.
5. We want what we want; He wants for us all that we need to become persons fit for eternal life
vii. When God shows himself to you, it will always be in a way that will shape your life to Him.
1. For some of us, the shaping can only be done with devastating experiences
2. We can take confidence and comfort in the fact that God seeks our growth not our defeat. He is a restrained wrestling partner
6. We wrestle with God’s ways.
a. It seems as if He is playing Hide & Seek with us.:
b. Our God is a God who reveals Himself, (see the Bible), yet at the same time, He is a God who often CONCEALS Himself as well.
c. Jacob asks the name of his attacker, but of course it is not given.
i. God does not tell His Name and His nature and bare himself to Jacob.
ii. Though indirectly revealing Himself, He remains hidden.
1. God’s response to Jacob’s request, “Please tell me your name? is simply, “Why do you ask my name?” In other words, I’m not going to tell you..
iii. At the same time, knowledge of one’s name game one control over another person, not unlike if I call out the name BOB, we will get at least 3 people in our church to say, “What?”
iv. Have you ever called out to God and gotten no answer? You wonder where He is in the middle of your struggle?
1. Think about Job for a moment, as the Bible tells us that God took his time answering Job’s cries for help and for answers. God purposely hid his face from Job, who was a righteous person, and as a consequence, Job FELT completely cut off from God..
2. Talk about concealment, God hid Himself from an upright man who was in desperate need.
3. In Psalm 10:1 we find, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
4. In Psalm 13:1-2 it says, “How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hid your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thought and every day have sorrow in my heart?”
v. It doesn’t sound as if God is very accessible, it almost seems as if God is hiding Himself. And if you think this is an Old Testament phenomena, you only need to look at Jesus and see God practicing concealment as well:
1. Everyone is expecting Jesus to come as a conquering king and he comes in “disguise” as a humble carpenter, and not everyone recognized him for who he was.
a. Now if he had only come as the conquering king as everyone expected, then surely he would have accomplished his mission, right?
2. It seems as if Jesus didn’t even want to be recognized or understood.
a. He obscures his messages by talking in parables.
i. These parables weren’t spoken to clarify truth but rather to hide it.
ii. Only those who made the extra effort to seek Jesus out and to ask him what he was talking about did he explain the meaning of his parables. (Quote)
1. Mark 4:9 “And He was saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." 10 As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, {began} asking Him {about} the parables. 11 And He was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, 12 so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN."
2. Mark 4:33-34 “With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it; 34 and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples.”
b. He even conceals himself…after his resurrection he appears to two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus “in disguise.”
i. Even though he taught them while they walked together and answered their questions, he didn’t let on to who he was. Their hearts were broken, having seen Jesus die, and Jesus withholds his risen identity from them.
1. Why?
ii. And when he stayed with them, he broke bread with them and they recognized him. And then he disappeared from their sight.
c. Then at the sea of Tiberius in the book of John, Jesus appears after his resurrection, while the disciples are out fishing. He doesn’t call to them and say, “hey guys, its me…Jesus!”
i. No, instead he tells them to try fishing on the other side of their boat. John realizes it when they make a miraculous catch of fish, but the bible says that some of the disciples doubted, even when they got to shore!
d. We know something was different about Jesus’ resurrected body, it was concealed but revealed at the same time.
e. And the bible concludes with a cryptic book that purposely hides truth in imagery. We puzzle over the book of Revelation, because while it is revealing, it is still hiding God’s plans from us.
d. Allow me to try to give you an idea why God does this.
i. It is clear that from the Bible that God desires us to make an EFFORT to search for Him, to figure Him out, to try to understand His words, and to see Him and His Hand wherever He is and in whatever is happening to us.
1. Look at Psalm 27:7-8 “Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice, And be gracious to me and answer me. When You said, "Seek My face," my heart said to You, "Your face, O LORD, I shall seek."
2. Luke 11:9-11, “"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 "For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
3. Hebrews 11:6 “So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him”
4. Acts 17:24-27 "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all {people} life and breath and all things; and He made from one {man} every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined {their} appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;”
ii. God’s purposes in hiding himself is not so as to say, “Nannynannynanny, gotcha” but rather to entice us to a ever deepening relationship with Him.
1. When I analyze my relationship with Jennifer, when we first met, we didn’t reveal everything about ourselves…it took time to reveal the deeper, inner things about ourselves. After 18 years of marriage, we are still learning how each other thinks.
2. As you and I take time to discover who God is, He will reveal himself to you.
iii. Think about your faith journey. I have known many people who when they first encounter Jesus Christ, they are so excited. It seems as if all of their prayers are answered. Then as time goes on, they begin to learn that there are things in their lives that God wants to change, and that they have wrong ways of thinking. And after awhile, the answers to prayers aren’t happening so fast or so easily.
1. God is teaching us that He is in charge.
2. And He helps us to fall in love with Him, and then as we learn who He is, He deals with us concerning the issues of His rule in our lives and moves us beyond the honeymoon.
3. In a very real way, God isn’t really hiding, but rather purposely not revealing all there is to reveal at once.
4. And as we seek Him we discover how much or how little we really trust, desire and want him!
iv. Consider Job…he may have felt that God had abandoned him, but if you read the scripture, you find that God was there the whole time, observing, watching and concerned for him.
1. You may feel like God is so far away right now. Your situation might feel hopeless or full of pain. You have a choice to run from God or run to Him.
e. God doesn’t want to be your “blessing machine” or your “get out of hell free card.” He wants an intimate relationship with you.
i. He doesn’t want to be just a concept or intellectual idea.
ii. He wants to be a person we communicate with.
iii. He doesn’t want our “holy masks” but rather wants honesty.
1. That means us being honest with how we feel about our relationship with Him.
2. The psalmist not only questioned God, but appeared frustrated and angry with God for not delivering him as quickly as he desired.
iv. God demands effort from us because he doesn’t want our relationship to deteriorate to the level of human relationships, that by the time they realize they are in trouble, it takes nothing short of a miracle to rescue it.
v. I knew a man who was all for God, yet when his daughter wasn’t healed, he turned his back on God and to my knowledge, never talked to God again.
1. That is what I call avoiding the wrestling match. It is avoiding conflict and ultimately, avoiding intimacy.
2. God knows that dealing with conflict leads to healthy relationships, and that’s what He wants with us.
a. Wrestling with God leads to a deeper experience of Him.
3. If you have a problem with God, the best thing you can do is to have it out with Him. That may sound irreverent, but it is totally biblical.
a. You can see evidence of David being angry with God.
b. I have had my share of shouting matches with God because He didn’t answer my prayer the way I wanted. Of course, He wins, but I was able to tell Him my feelings and I know He wanted me to express them.
c. He is in this for the relationship.
f. The apostle Paul wrestled with God …he had been avoiding God, because when God stopped him on the road to Damascus, he asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
i. In other words, God had been dealing with Saul for some time.
ii. Then God revealed himself to Saul, by saying, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” and then left him blind.
iii. God floored Saul, pinning him to the ground so that he could not escape in order to save him.
iv. Has God been wrestling with you? Or have you been avoiding the match?
Wrestling with God is ultimately about Intimacy and growing Closer to God.
1. But that isn’t possible if you run from Him.
2.
7. Imagine the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits, shows with very weird endings.
a. You are getting ready to go to a wrestling match, and you are a contestant. But you know your opponent is way too big. So as you walk into the auditorium, you change your mind. You turn around as the crowd jeers, and you head for the exit. But just as you go through the exit, you are surprised to see that the door you went out led you back into the wrestling arena. No this cannot be! So you look for another exit and run for it, but the same thing happens, you find it leads right back to the same room.
i. This is the way we are with God. We might be putting off our match with Him, but until we wrestle with Him, until we are willing to become real, honest and sincere, until we are willing to seek Him with our whole heart, we are running away from Him.
ii. Maybe you have heard Him call you to a deeper prayer time, or a stronger walk, or you have questions for Him that you haven’t gotten answered.
1. Don’t expect easy answers or short cuts.
2. There is a match waiting for you.
3. You may need to stay up all night in prayer to find it, just as Jacob stayed up all night wrestling with God.
4. But until you are humbled, until it means more to you than anything else, you won’t experience the release you are seeking.
b. Are you ready to stop running?
c. Perhaps you have run from God till today. You hear Him calling your name. Will you run from Him or will you answer His call? I will be here at the front if you wish to respond, and need me to pray with you.
d.
