Genesis 32 We are going through Jacob's journey in small group and we will go into what we will talk about next week. This is one of my favorite chapters of Genesis and this is Jacob's wrestle with God. This bears a personal signficance to us as well and that is why we will look at it today. [scripture] [prayer] If you know anything aobut Jacob's life, you know his life was full of conflict. Even when he was in his mother's womb, before he was born, he was found wrestling with his brother. We find that he tricks his father into giving him the blessing his father was planning to give his older brother, Esau. He later gets cheated by his uncle Laban into working more years than he bargained for. He finds himself escaping in the middle of the night. His uncle chases him down but God warns his uncle in a dream not to interfere with him or his faimly in any way. We see nothihng but trouble in Jacbo's life. Nothing but confllict, yet God has blessed him every step of the way and God has made him prosperous. Despite all the conflict that Jacob has gone thorugh, Jacob has gotten his way. He got the blessing he wanted from his brother, he got the girl he wanted to marry, and after laboring for his uncle, he was more prosperous than his uncle in the ned. However, things have changed in chapter 32. we see a very different situation. Jacob realizes that this si a problem that is too big for him. He is going home after the twenty ears he has been working for his uncle Laban. He sees that his brother may have a grudge against him so he sends a messenger to ask him brother if everything is okay. Instead, he finds from his messengers that his brother has sent four hundred men, a small army, to greet him. Jacob does two things: he divides his faimly up into two camps. He has his wives, female servants, sons, and others into two groups so that if Esau persues one, theo ther group will live. Jacob also gathers gifts, which is like giving your brother a new Mercedes for his birthday. The text goes through the gift and breaks it up into different parts, so that Esau will understand how big this gift was. Yet, despite all these efforst, if Esau wanted to defeat Jacob, there is no stopping him. Jacob has met his match. So, finally, Jacob the cheater, the liar, the conman, has finally f ound something he could not cheat out of. We see him wresting with God. He wrestles with a man and we know that this man is God because only God can bless. Also, at the end, Jacob names that place Peniel, which means ____. So, Jacob wrestles with God, w hich might seem strange. You wrestel with your brother or sister, your friend, or maybe your golden retreiver, buty ou don't wrestle with God. You can't even call it wrestling because you are no match. We see from Jacob's experience what 3 observations about this text that show us how and why Jacob wrestled with God Notcie, first of all, what is it htat provokes this encounter between God and Jacob? It is a life threatening crisis. It is a problem so big that Jacob can't deal with it on his own. It's interesting ot see that only when Jacob is out of options and he has no where else to go that he finds himself wrestling with God. It's interseting because how often is this true of us? Even in our own lives, we won't engage with God deeply until soemthing like this happens to us and we face some kind of life threatening crisis, something that is so far beyond us that we can't take care of it ourselves. We pride ourselves in being resourceful and being self-sufficient that we are unwiliing to ask for help, even from God. I don't think it's a mistake when God brings you to a place where you feel like our back is against hte wall, that you have no other options, you are facing something too big for you to handle. Unfortunately, that is the only way for god to get tyour attention. It takes pain and crisis. It takes hitting rock bottom for you to finally cry out to God passionately and intensely and desperately.. You see that in the life of Jonah. Jonah runs from God and only when he finds himself in the belly of a whale, heading down tot hte depths, that he finally cries out to God, after a long season of rebellion. How many of you guys find youreslf in that place right now? God is trying to get your attention. The second ting i want you to notice is the length and intensity of the match between Jacob and God. Here in verse 24 in particualr, we have this verse where it says taht Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. We probably want a more detailed description of this sixth hour. Jacob wrestled with God for hte enitre night. We wrestle with papers for the whole night, but not with God. How long do wrestling matches last? Maybe three minutes long? Professional wrestling matches may last maybe an hour. This wrestling match bewteen Jacob and God lasted much longer than the wresteling matches that we're familiar with. We also see the intensity of the wresting during this period. There are rules in high school and Olymptic style wrestling. They chnaged the name from WWF to E-world entertainment, because theyre finally admitting that it's a show. The winner would often stand upon the vanquished with his feet on the defeated's cheset and take a spear to guage out hsi eyes. In God's wrestling match, He dislocates Jacob's hip/ this is not a game The third thing to notice is that Jacob wins by losing. This is the crux of the passage. Jacob wins by his weakness and not by his strength. As soon as this man touches Jacob's hip, the hip is dislocated and the match is over. Jacob is crippled, but Jacob thinks otherwise and won't let go of his man. The man tells him to let Him go because He has won. Jacob insists and says that he will not let Him go until He blesses him. Jacob, out of utter desperation, out of his own hopelessness, out of his own realization that he has nowhere else to go, he holds on to God. God finally give sup and blesses him. God changes his name to Isreal, symbolizing Jacob's victory. What we see is Jacob, out of his sheer brokenness; he has lost the match but he prevails out of despreation. Jacob is victorious because God lost, and he got God's blessing, but did Jacob win or did God win? Who came out crippled? Even his name changing is somewhat ambiguous. The word Israel would normally mean God prevails. God puts a twist on it. Even in Jacob's victory, we see this beautiful irony. Jacob won because he got what he wantd. However, he lost because he comes out crippled and broken. More important than physically, he comes out broken spiritually. He realizes that there are situations that are too big for him to handle. For the rest of his life, he learns to depend on God. God won because he broke Jacob and got him to trust Him like he never trusted Him before. Jacob wins by losing. He gets his way because in the next chapter, we see that Esau has forgiven his brother Jacob. Jacob will never be same physically. He aways walks with a limp which reminds him of his spiritual brokenness. I will give you three applications as well. 1) God saves and blesses messed up people with messed up lives. As we see the entire story of Jacob, we see that. Of all the families he could have chosen, he choses thsi one. Instead of choosing the Incredibles, he chooses the Simpsons. That is the family God choses to save the world with. What a family! This is how I know the bible is true. You get all the dirty laundry. There is no spin, no covering up. The bible is not a story about great people, as much as it is about a great God who loves broken people. Soem of you feel like you are too messed up for God to love you, but if God could love Jacob, God could love you. No one is beyond hope in God's book. There are no hopeless causes because he knows that he needs you to be broken so that you will hold on to him with no other source for blessing 2) God's grace is unconditional and is a grace that transforms. God doesn't want to leave Jacob there and wants to work in Jacob's life. The best symbol of this is the changing of Jacob's name to Isreal. God loves you where you are but he loves you too much to leave you there. God will do wahtever it takes to own you even if it means breaking you. You see what it took God to own Jacob, and God will do whatever it takes to own you. Some of you guys will feel like God is ruthless and God is heartless, maybe even that God has abandoned you, but the reality is that sometimes, we must wrestle with God for a long time. Jacob spent all night wrestling with God. Many of us, your wrestling may lasts longer. The answers and blessigns don't come quickly or easily. God has placed you on the anvil and he's shaping you and the only way to do that if to use a hammer. He hammers away at Jacob to shape him into what he wants him to be. God will take the hammer to you if he really loves you. In that place of despeartion, know that God loves you too much that he cannot leave you in our sin. He disciplines you. 3) The paradox of Christian maturity. When you think of someone who is mature, you think of someone who is self sufficient, one who can take care of himself and is independent. In the case of Christian life, the opposite is true. In the case of Jacob, he maturues by realizeing how immature and borken he is and how he must depend on God. It's starnge for us to think about that in that way. A mature Christian is someone who is increasingly dpendent on God, every day, every week, every month. Jacob walked for the rest of his life with a limp, daily reminder of how God has broken him. Only out of his borkenness, God could bless him. In your own brokenness, find your strength. It's okya to wakl with a spiritual limp