When God Touches You, Does It Hurt? - Genesis 32-33 Series

A family was sitting around the dinner table having a discussion and the conversation turned to a man. One of their friends had recently become a believer. The dad said in the comment, “Yeah, God touched his heart.”

The seven-year-old girl paused for a moment and she said, “How does God touch someone’s heart? How does God touch someone?”

Mom thought about that for a minute and she said, “Well what that means is that God touches them and they’re a changed person.”

So she thought about that for a little bit and she said, “When God touches someone does it hurt?”

Dad thought about that for a minute and he says, “Well sometimes when God touches you He kind of wraps His arms around you and you just feel the comfort of God in His presence. Sometimes when God touches you He tickles you. You know you look out and you go, ‘Oh this is so great.’ I just think the blessing of God is God’s tickling that God does sometimes when He touches us. But there are other times when God touches us and it does hurt. But it’s always good.”

Wow. I like that answer. I like that response. Because sometimes when God touches us it hurts. That’s what we’re going to see in our chapter today as we look at Genesis 32.

I’m excited to share this story with you because this is a remarkable story that changes the lives of every Jewish person even today. You see what’s happening in the story is that Jacob is upset and afraid and he’s got this problem with fear. We’ll talk about that. But God is actually going to touch his hip, which is going to go out of socket and he’s going to limp for the rest of his life. That’s what’s going to take place.

Now the Bible is going to tell us in the passage that all the Jewish people don’t eat that part of the meat of the cow or the sheep. They don’t eat that part because this is such a holy event. This was so special that God touched grandpa. God touched his heart. We know that. He changed his name in the passage. God did something special in his life. So we’re going to make that a holy experience. So the Jews don’t even eat that part of the meat of the animal out of holiness, holy reverence for the fact that God touched Grandpa Jacob.

Well let’s dig into the passage and see what God does in Genesis 32. It starts this way. Verse 1 starts with these first few words. It says – Jacob went on his way. Which gives me the opportunity to remind us what on his way means. Where has he been? Well you know that for the last twenty years he’s been with Laban. That was a good experience in the sense that God blessed him with all the children, wealth, and so he grew. But it was also a challenging experience because of Laban himself. So we saw last week how they separated and it was not an easy separation. But it was done now and now Jacob turns and he’s facing toward home.

Now he’s got another whole load on his heart that’s bothering him. Because twenty years ago he left home. When he left home his brother was mad at him, even said he was going to kill him, and that’s why he had to leave home. So for twenty years this has been lingering in his mind. What’s going to happen now as I go home? What am I going to do? God said I will be with you. The five words. I will be with you. But he’s still pondering this. He’s still concerned about it. It's still weighing on his heart.

So we continue the verse. It says – So Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God's camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim (which means two camps). He’s looking at his whole camp of people, but then he looks up and there’s angels there. Somehow God revealed to him angels. I’m going wow, this is so caring of God to do. For a man who’s looking toward going home, knowing that there’s a big challenge awaiting him, for God to send these angels, this is so exciting and so great. So empowering.

I just think if God would open our eyes so we could see angels, we’d be surprised at where they are. I think there’s probably a lot of angels on the New Jersey Turnpike, protecting people as they’re driving. Do you know the Bible tells us as Jesus was speaking He referred to every child having an angel. And some of our children use those angels more than others. Those angels are there. There's a spiritual presence that exists.