Wrestling With God

We're continuing our series in the book of Genesis this morning.

If this is your first time with us or first time in a while,

we've been walking through the book of Genesis,

and we've made our way here this morning to chapters 32 and 33.

You notice we're kind of taking some bigger chunks at a time now

as we get into the later portions of Genesis.

These narratives kind of expand a little bit.

And so it's our practice that as we read the Word of God,

we stand in honor and in reverence of the Word of the Lord.

If you are physically unable or hindered in any way from standing, that's okay.

You can take a seat.

But if you would, when you found Genesis 32 and chapter 33,

let's stand this morning in honor of the reading of God's Word.

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.

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir,

the country of Edom, instructing them, Thus you shall say to my lord Esau.

Thus says your servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.

I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants and female servants.

I have sent to tell my lord in order that I may find favor in your sight.

And the messengers returned to Jacob and said, We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you.

And there are 400 men with him.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

He divided the people who were with him and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two camps,

thinking, If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.

And Jacob said,

O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me,

Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good.

I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.

For with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.

For I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers, but the children.

But you said, I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea,

which cannot be numbered for multitude.

So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau.

200 female goats and 20 male goats and 200 ewes and 20 rams,

30 milking camels and their calves, 40 cows and 10 bulls,

20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.

These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants,

Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.

He instructed the first,

When Esau my brother meets you and asks you,

To whom do you belong? Where are you going?

And whose are these ahead of you?

Then you shall say,

They belong to your servant Jacob.

They are a present, sent to my lord Esau.

And moreover, he is behind us.

He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves,

You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him.

And you shall say, Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.

For he thought, I may appease him with a present that goes ahead of me.

And afterward I shall see his face.

Perhaps he will accept me.

So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children,

And crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had,

And Jacob was left alone.

And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,

He touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

Then he said, Let me go, for the day has broken.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

And he said to him, What is your name?

And he said, Jacob.

Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,

For you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.

Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name.

But he said, Why is it that you ask my name?

And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying,

For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.

Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket,

because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him.

So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel into two female servants.

And he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children,

and Rachel and Joseph last of all.

He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times,

until he came near to his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.

And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said,

Who are these with you?

Jacob said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant.

Then the servants drew near, they and their children, and bowed down.

Likewise, Leah and her children drew near, and bowed down.

And last, Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.

Esau said, What do you mean by all this company that I met?

Jacob answered, To find favor in the sight of my Lord.

But Esau said, I have enough, my brother.

Keep what you have for yourself.

Jacob said, No, please.

If I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand.

For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.

Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me,

and because I have enough.

Thus he urged him, and he took it.

Then Esau said, Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.

But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail,

and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me.

If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.

Let my Lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly,

at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me,

and at the pace of the children, until I come to my Lord and see her.

So Esau said, Let me leave you with some of the people who are with me.

But he said, What need is there?

Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord.

So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir,

but Jacob journeyed to Succoth,

and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock.

Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.

And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem,

which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan Aram,

and he camped before the city.

And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father,

he bought for a hundred pieces of money

the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent.

There he erected an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.

The grass withers and the flower fades,

but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Father, we pray once more as we sit under the preaching of your word.

God, would you empower the preaching of your word

for the good of your people and the glory of your name.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Are you a confident Christian?

If so, what is the source of your confidence?

It's been a long time since I watched the movie The Lion King,

but I remember it well.

Maybe you do as well.

It was one of my favorite movies to watch as a kid,

and you probably remember that it follows the story of this young lion named Simba,

who is full of confidence.

He knows that one day soon he will inherit all of Pride Rock.

He's going to be king of the animal kingdom.

He has these promises ahead of him, so he's very confident.

But unfortunately, what we learn about Simba is that his confidence is misplaced,

and it makes him reckless.

He goes headstrong into the elephant graveyard,

and right before the hyenas come and they come for him,

he utters that famous line.

You remember what it is?

I laughed in the face of danger.

Ha, ha, ha.

Of course, what he didn't understand,

and what he realized quickly when the danger came,

was that he was not, in fact, prepared for the danger around him,

although he thought he was.

He was not, in fact, strong enough to handle it on his own,

although he thought he was.

The only reason why he was safe and secure out there up to this point

was that Mufasa, his father, had watched over him

and protected him and safeguarded him from the danger.

His confidence was sadly misplaced.

In our passage this morning here in Jacob's story,

what we see is that Jacob comes to a similar realization.

Jacob, up to this point, you remember, he has relied on his own strength.

And like many of us, Jacob wrestles with this problem of self-sufficiency.

He's wrestled, he's relied on his own tricks.

He's relied on his own effort to get him through.

But what we see here this morning is that God loves Jacob enough

to teach him a hard lesson.

God wants him and us this morning to understand that this is misplaced confidence.

When danger comes into the life of a believer,

we can be confident, not because we are strong,

but because God is strong on our behalf.

So the big idea for us here in our passage this morning is this.

The believer can face their fear of man by looking to the face of God.

The believer can face their fear of man by looking to the face of God.

So let's take a look here at our passage.

We'll see it in three parts this morning.

This is our outline.

If you're a note taker, this will help you follow along.

First, we see that the believer sometimes fears man.

The believer sometimes fears man.

Look there to verse 1 of chapter 32.

And let's just kind of recap here and remember where we've been up to this point

with Jacob and his story because we're kind of coming to an end of Jacob's story.

And we have followed him literally from the womb, haven't we?

We saw Jacob come out of the womb grasping his brother's heel.

We've seen him lie and cheat his way into the blessing.

And you remember how Esau felt about all of that?

Esau wanted his brother Jacob dead.

And so Rebekah, Jacob's mother, sends him away to family members off in Haran

to go and find a wife.

And on his way there, Jacob goes to sleep.

He lays his head on a rock and he takes a nap.

And what does he see?

He sees this miraculous vision of angels ascending and descending,

this stairway or this ladder up to heaven.

God met with Jacob there and reassured him of his plans and his promises for him.

Jacob makes his way over to Laban.

20 years go by.

We see the Lord has blessed Jacob tremendously.

He has wives.

He has 11 sons.

He has flocks.

He has herds.

God has delivered Jacob from all the family drama with his father-in-law Laban.

And now God has said, it is time, Jacob, for you to go back home.

But there's just one problem, isn't there?

What about Esau?

Jacob knows that that threat of Esau is still looming there in the background.

I mean, do you think that maybe he's forgotten about being tricked?

And maybe 20 years have gone by and Esau has kind of calmed down just a little bit.

I don't know.

Maybe Esau's dead.

Jacob has no way to know.

He can't pick up the phone and call.

He can't check social media and see how Esau's doing.

He has no way to know whether or not that threat has been resolved.

Maybe Esau has just forgotten about the whole thing.

Or maybe Esau has been waiting for 20 years for the chance to squash his little brother, Jacob.

And now Jacob is walking right into the path of danger.

Jacob's on his way.

But just as God did with Jacob on the way out of Canaan, so now on the way back into his homeland, verse 1,

it says the angels of God met with him.

And we don't have any more information on this meeting, do we?

But I think it's probably safe for us to assume that they have come yet again to assure Jacob and to remind Jacob,

yes, there's danger ahead, but Jacob, remember, God is with you.

Jacob, God is for you.

Jacob, God has called you to go into this place.

His word has compelled you to go.

Your circumstances have changed, but God's promises haven't changed.

The danger is there with you, but God is there with you.

These messengers come and they comfort Jacob.

They assure him of God's presence with them.

And so Jacob, he comes out of this meeting with these angelic messengers of God.

And then look what he does.

He sends his own messengers before him to go and meet with Esau.

And here's what he says.

He says, verse 4,

Tell my brother, I've been sojourning with Laban.

I've stayed there until now.

I have oxen.

I have donkeys.

I have flocks.

I have male servants.

I have female servants.

Translation, go tell my brother, I am rich beyond your wildest dreams.

And buddy, my checkbook is open.

I can give you anything you want.

Just please, please, please do not kill me.

The messengers come back to Jacob and they say, well, we've delivered the message.

Esau is coming to meet you.

And he has 400 men coming with him.

You can imagine how this seems to Jacob, right?

Jacob, he has the promises of God.

He knows God's plans for him.

And yet, look at this threat that's right there in front of his face.

Jacob knows intellectually what God has said.

But the reality that's right there in front of his eyes says something different, doesn't it?

That danger that he can see with his eyes is terrifying and it's overwhelming for Jacob.

I mean, you may have experienced something like this, Christian.

You know in your heart, you know in your mind the promises of God.

You know what God has said.

But of course we know just belonging to God, being a Christian, does not remove you from the dangers of this life, does it?

And sometimes when you come across something that's really overwhelming for you, we can be tempted and prone to be afraid.

How do you respond when fears arise?

Jacob, we've seen, he's sort of a mixed character, isn't he?

Jacob, he responds with this sort of mixture, this mixed trust.

It's partial dependence on himself and partial dependence on the Lord.

On the one hand, Jacob, he sees the threat coming and he immediately flips into survival mode.

Some of us, that's our reaction, isn't it?

And we start strategizing.

He splits up his people, he splits up his flocks, he splits up his herds and his camels.

He divides them into two camps.

He starts strategizing.

And this guy is never without a plan, is he?

This is the schemer, remember?

But then, here in verse 9, in the middle of all of this danger and worry, look what he does.

Jacob stops to pray.

This is the longest recorded prayer in the book of Genesis, here in verses 9 through 12.

And I want us to look here at this because Jacob gives us a model of how we can pray, believer,

in the moments of fear and danger.

Look what he says.

O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac,

O Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred that I may do you good.

You notice what he's doing?

Jacob is praying in light of who God is.

God, you are the God of my fathers.

You are the God of Abraham.

You are the covenant God of Isaac.

I've heard the stories.

You are faithful.

You're the faithful covenant God who's carried them through.

Jacob prays in light of what God has said.

He prays in light of the promises of God.

In fact, he prays God's word right back to him.

You see that?

God, you said go back home.

You said go home that I might do you good.

You said that, God.

He prays with a posture of confession and thanksgiving.

You see the humility here.

He says, I'm not worthy, verse 10.

I'm not worthy of the least of all of the deeds of steadfast love and all of the faithfulness that you've shown to your servant.

I only had a staff when I crossed the Jordan and now look what you've done.

And finally, verse 11.

After all of this, in light of all of this, he asks God to act.

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau.

For I fear him.

God, I'm afraid.

I fear that he will attack me.

I fear that he will attack the mothers.

I fear that he will attack the children.

But you said, God.

You said, I will do you good.

You said.

You remember?

I will make your offspring as the sand of the sea which can't be numbered for multitude.

You said that, God.

And so, God, would you please do what you've promised to do?

Church, this is how we ought to pray.

When danger comes.

When, not if.

Right?

When danger comes.

And when, like Jacob, we experience this fear and this worry and this anxiety of what may or may not happen.

Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go and find a place.

Take your Bible with you.

It's okay to pray with your Bible open.

That's good.

Right?

Pray God's word back to him.

Pray God's promises back to him.

God, you said.

Praise him for who he is.

God, you are good.

I know you're good.

You've shown yourself to be good.

God, you're faithful.

God, you're strong.

God, you're sovereign over this and every other circumstance.

Pray humbly.

Confess your sin to him.

Not from a position of you owe this to me.

But I am unworthy of all of this that you've done for me.

And then ask him.

Ask him to act on your behalf.

Jacob models for us how to pray in the face of danger.

But then look at this.

It's like as soon as he says amen and gets up off of his knees, he gets back to work.

It's like he can't help himself.

He can't let go of this sense of control.

Y'all ever struggle with that?

I know I do.

Verse 13 says he stays there that night.

He doesn't want to keep moving towards Esau.

And so he sends these gifts ahead of him.

He divides up all the flocks, all the camels, all the bulls.

He sends them in waves.

For he thought.

Now this is interesting.

Verse 20.

He thought I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me.

And afterward I shall see his face.

And perhaps he will accept me.

You probably have a note in your Bibles if you look down at the bottom.

That gives you a little bit of a different way to translate that verse.

And I think that this emphasis is important.

The word face shows up four times in that verse.

If we were to translate it in kind of a wooden stiff way, it would say something like this.

That I may appease his face with the present that goes out from my face.

Afterward I shall see his face.

And perhaps he will lift my face.

Jacob is fearful of seeing the face of Esau.

He's fearful that his own face will be ashamed and even destroyed.

And see he's so worried about this that he can't even sleep.

You know how sometimes you lay down to sleep and you're so anxious.

You're so worried.

You have so much on your mind that you just can't get any sleep at all.

That ever happened to you?

You get up.

You make sure the oven's turned off.

You go check on the kids.

Make sure they're all still sleeping in their beds.

Make sure the doors are locked.

And maybe you know that you've got to have a hard conversation.

When you wake up tomorrow and you're worried about how that might go.

What you might say.

There's something ahead of you that's keeping you up.

You ever had that problem?

Verse 22.

It says,

That same night he gets up and he takes one last safety measure.

He takes his two wives and his two female servants and his 11 sons.

And he sends them up north across the ford of the Jabbok.

He's just got one last little scheme to pull off.

Jacob's kind of complicated, isn't he?

His flashes of dependence and then flashes of self-sufficiency.

It looks for a minute like he's depending on the Lord.

And then he's right back to scheming.

It's partial dependence on God and partial dependence on self.

I know God has promised I'll make it safely home.

I know that he'll bless me and I know that he'll multiply me.

But still, here am I stressing out.

I can't even sleep.

And here I am scheming on how to work all of this out in my own strength.

Aren't we just like this, church?

Think about whatever it is that you fear the most.

That could be sickness.

That could be death itself.

That could be the loss of a loved one, the loss of a relationship.

Maybe you're like Jacob.

You have some family issues that you just don't want to deal with.

You're afraid of seeing that person's face again.

We can all be prone to fear, whatever that is.

But friend, the question is,

How do you respond as a believer to the fears that are in your heart?

We see second.

Second, the believer looks to the face of God.

Second, the believer looks to the face of God.

Look there to verse 24 with me.

Jacob is there in the middle of the night all alone, it says.

It makes that point.

He's all alone.

And then it says,

All of a sudden, a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

What in the world is going on?

It says they wrestle all night long until the breaking of the day.

And when the man sees that he didn't prevail against Jacob,

he just touches his hip socket,

and Jacob's hip is put out of joint as he wrestles with this man.

I mean, that's not exactly what you want to happen

the night before the biggest battle of your life, is it?

This is out of nowhere, right?

Who is this guy?

And where does he come from?

We have no introduction to him at all.

We just have Jacob by himself at night,

and then this dude jumps down from the top rope,

and he's wrestling Jacob all of a sudden.

You read the commentaries.

You hear what people say,

and some say that this is Jacob's guardian angel.

Others say that this is Esau, his brother.

I don't know how they reconcile that somehow.

Others, they kind of psychoanalyze this,

and they say this is just kind of a story.

Jacob's wrestling with his guilt.

He's wrestling with his fears.

He's wrestling with his emotions and his thoughts.

But Jacob comes out of this with a lip, right?

This is a physical altercation,

a physical wrestling match.

I mean, the best way to understand this, church,

is to say what the Bible says.

The prophet Hosea, in chapter 12,

he says about Jacob,

in the womb he took his brother by the heel,

and in his manhood he strove with God.

He strove with the angel and prevailed.

He wept and sought his favor.

And Jacob is wrestling here with the angel of the Lord.

This angel who is so closely identified with God himself

that to see him, Jacob says,

is to see the very face of God.

This is a physical manifestation of the presence of God.

Some even go so far as to say

that this is the pre-incarnate Christ,

the second person of the Trinity.

And I'm not totally certain enough to say to you, church,

that that is absolutely right,

but it's certainly within the realm of possibility.

It's all just, it's mysterious, isn't it?

Which means that if you still have some questions

about all this,

then I think that that's a good thing.

One thing that we don't want to do

when we come across a mystery like this in Scripture

is to try and over-explain it

and over-analyze it to the point

where it makes us very comfortable.

Because church, I don't know if you know this or not,

but we don't worship a God who fits nicely

and neatly and cleanly all the time

into our categories of thinking.

This is one of those times where it's okay,

it's better even to say,

I don't know exactly how this works.

But clearly what we can say,

because again, the text says it itself,

is that Jacob has engaged in a wrestling match

with God himself.

So I have another question.

Why is God wrestling with Jacob?

And apparently it looks like Jacob's holding his own, right?

What is going on here?

And here's where I want to get an image in your mind, okay?

I want you to picture this with me.

Have you ever seen a dad wrestling with his son?

You know dads and sons like to wrestle.

Drives moms crazy.

I have firsthand experience about this.

Part of that wrestling match

is the father is allowing his son

to test his strength against him, right?

He says, son, you can't wrestle anybody else like this.

You can't fight anybody else like this,

but dad can take it.

So come on, let's go.

And every now and then,

dad will even let his son pin him to the ground

and count to 10, won't he?

And what do you think that does for the son

when he gets dad to say uncle?

Now that is a confidence booster for that kid, isn't it?

He can leave dad and say,

man, if I can pin dad to the ground

and make him count to 10

and make him say uncle,

I can do anything at all, can't I?

But even more importantly than that,

is that son is shown in that engagement

with their father just how strong their dad is.

And that son knows deep down,

even if they don't want to admit it,

that my dad, he can end this fight anytime he wants.

And his confidence is strengthened in his dad

in that moment.

And he believes that if a threat actually comes,

if a threat actually comes against me,

I know my dad can step in,

come to my defense,

and protect me,

not because I'm strong,

but because he is strong.

And they can go to the playground

and face those playground bullies

and say, my dad is stronger than your dad.

And know that it's true.

The Lord jumps in the ring

and wrestles with Jacob

and Jacob is persistent as ever.

He fights all night long.

And when the Lord sees this guy's not giving up,

what does he do?

Pop!

Touches his hip.

Goes out of joint.

And he says,

all right, Jacob, it's time to go.

Let me go.

It's time to stop.

But look at what Jacob does.

He says,

I will not let you go

unless you bless me.

Dad says we're done.

And the son grips him a little bit tighter

and he says,

no, you got to give me some ice cream first, dad.

You see the picture here?

But here the Lord gets to the point.

He says,

son, what's your name?

And he says,

Jacob.

He says,

not anymore.

Your name shall no longer be called Jacob,

but Israel.

Why?

For you have striven with God and with man

and have prevailed.

You know,

in this culture,

in the ancient Near East,

to name somebody,

to name something,

that's a sign of authority over that person.

You think of man giving names

to all the animals in the Garden of Eden.

That's a symbol of authority.

But it's also a symbol of identity.

It's an indicator of who that person is

or who we hope they might become.

The Lord says to Jacob,

from this time forward,

you are no longer that old trickster Jacob.

You're no longer that cheat who grabs by the heel.

You're no longer the schemer.

Now you are Israel,

the one who strives with God.

He gives him a new identity here.

Even so,

Jacob,

still wrestling,

he says,

it's my turn.

You tell me your name.

He's still trying to get some authority over this man,

isn't he?

He's still wrestling with control,

but he says,

why do you ask my name?

He doesn't give in,

does he?

And there he blessed him.

So Jacob calls the place Peniel,

which means the face of God,

saying,

I have seen God face to face,

and yet my life has been delivered.

Do you see what God's just done for Jacob?

God has just shifted Jacob's confidence

off of himself

and where it rightly belongs,

back to the Lord.

He has just seen the Lord face to face

and lived to tell about it.

Sinners don't see the Holy God face to face

and lived to tell about it,

apart from the great mercy and grace of God.

He's seen and experienced firsthand.

Once again,

the Lord is for Jacob.

He's not willing to destroy him,

although certainly he's able.

Certainly he's powerful enough to destroy him.

Rather,

the Lord in all of his strength

is for Jacob

to bless him

and to protect him

and to guard him.

He leaves here with the blessing of the Lord.

He's just been humbled to see

all my strength

and all my craftiness

and all my ability,

all my effort.

I cannot match the power of the Lord.

But guess what?

If this God with all his strength

is in my corner,

what do I have to fear?

He is no longer Jacob,

no longer the trickster,

no longer the one who grabs by the heel.

He is now the one who strives with God.

Christian,

do you realize

that because you are in Christ by faith,

that you share that same confidence in the Lord?

greater even

than the confidence of Jacob.

To be a Christian

is to know

with absolute certainty

that God,

the most powerful being

in all the universe,

the one who spoke

all things into being

with just the words

out of his mouth,

that God

is for you

in Christ.

And to be a Christian

is to know

that when you stand

before the living God,

he will bless you

and not destroy you.

Why?

Because by his great mercy

and grace,

he has done everything needed

for sinners like us

to be made right with him

by the blood of his own son,

Jesus.

It's to know

that he has sent Christ

to live

and to die

and to rise

for us

so that any who simply

put their faith in him

will be washed

clean of our sin,

forgiven of our sin,

made new

in his sight,

given new identities

in him,

made a new creation

before him.

Whatever is in your past

before Christ,

that is no longer

who you are in Christ.

God has made you

a new creation

by his grace.

And to be a Christian

is to know

that what lies

ahead of you,

church,

the promises

that lie ahead of you.

God has promised you

such incredible blessings

in this life

and especially

in the age to come.

And if he's promised you

this by his word,

certainly

he's capable

of bringing you

safely home

through any danger

that this life

might bring.

Who is stronger

than your God?

Who is able

to stop

or derail

his plans

and his promises

for you

in Christ?

To be a Christian

is to have

the confidence

to know

that no threat

can stand

against you.

No threat

can ever remove

God's love

for you

in Christ.

No danger

in this world

or any other

can ever

derail

God's plans

and promises

for you

in Christ.

Do you see

the confidence

this ought to give us,

church?

church?

And when you

realize this power

of the gospel,

you don't turn

and say,

man,

I'm worthy

of all that,

aren't I?

Man,

I'm strong.

Whatever danger

I have to fear,

I can't fear

because with a little

bit of help

from God,

I can overcome

anything, right?

God just gives me

a little boost,

makes me stronger.

That's not the message

of the gospel.

The message

of the gospel

is you cannot

do it,

but God

alone

has already

done it

in Christ.

God

is our confidence.

If you're in Him,

in Christ

by faith,

church,

you can face

anything in this life

with absolute

confidence

in Him.

And that's what

we see here

in our third

and final point

this morning.

I promise this

chapter will be

briefer.

Third,

we see the believer

faces their

fears

with confidence

in the Lord.

The believer

faces their fears

with confidence

in the Lord.

And Jacob

looks up

and what does

he see?

He sees Esau

coming and

he's got his

400 men

with him

and so what

does Jacob

do?

Again,

hot and cold,

right?

He goes right

back to strategizing.

Verse 1 says

Jacob divides up

the children

among Leah

and Rachel

and the two

female servants.

He arranges

them strategically

and look at this

y'all.

He's not even

hiding it,

is he?

We all know

that Jacob

loves Rachel

most,

right?

Sometimes you

think about

that question,

what would I

grab from the

house if the

fire comes

and what would

I grab first?

Jacob makes it

pretty clear he's

grabbing Rachel

and Joseph,

everybody else,

y'all on your

own.

So he puts the

servants out front

with their children

that is like

closest to where

Esau would come,

so they'd be the

first to go.

And then he's

got Leah with

her children,

so they'd go

next.

And then way

at the back

he's got finally

Rachel and

Joseph and the

idea again is

well if things

go south,

my favorite wife

and my favorite

son,

they might have a

chance to get

away.

Y'all are

expendable up

here.

No wonder

Joseph's brothers

hate him.

A little foretaste

of what's coming

next.

In verse 3 it

says that he

himself goes on

before them,

he bows himself

to the ground

seven times,

and that's about

six times more

than what's normal

and expected.

He is groveling

before Esau.

Please don't kill

me.

Please don't kill

me.

Please don't kill

me.

Please don't kill

me.

Look what happens.

Before he even

gets a chance to

speak, Esau runs

up to meet him,

and he hugs him,

and he falls on

his neck,

and they embrace,

and he kisses him,

and they together,

they wept.

This big,

burly man who

wanted his brother

dead is crying

at the sight of

him.

Now all of this

fear and all of

this worry, it

seems like it

was for nothing.

Why?

Because the Lord

has gone before

Jacob.

Didn't the Lord

tell Jacob to go

back home?

Didn't the Lord

tell Jacob,

go home so I

can do you good?

And didn't the

Lord tell Jacob

that he would be

with him,

and would bless

him,

and would

multiply him.

All of this

worry about the

danger that's out

there was for

nothing.

Why?

Because God has

already promised in

his word that he

would protect him.

Esau looks up,

and he sees all

these women and

children, and says,

who are all these

with you?

And now Jacob gets

to introduce them

to the family.

It's a big,

beautiful family

reunion after all

this time.

Twenty years has

gone by,

and Jacob clearly

was worried about

how he might be

received, and here's

Esau welcoming him

back with open arms.

It kind of reminds

you of the prodigal

son, doesn't it?

And before he even

has a chance to say

his peace, Esau runs

and greets him and

embraces him.

After they've all

met, Esau says,

what do you mean by

all this stuff that

you sent ahead of

me, all this company

that I'm at?

And Jacob says,

to find favor in the

sight of my Lord.

And they kind of

haggle over this for

a minute.

Esau says, I have

enough.

Keep what you have

for yourself.

Jacob insists and

says, I've seen

your face, which is

like seeing the face

of God.

He would know.

And you have

accepted me.

So he urges Esau,

and Esau takes it.

And everything here

is resolving to an

end, to about as

perfectly of an

ending for Jacob as

you could possibly

imagine, isn't it?

Look at verse 12,

chapter 33.

And Jacob has one

last trick up his

sleeve.

He can't help

himself, can he?

Esau is ready to

escort Jacob back to

Seir, and he says,

let us journey on our

way together.

Come on, bro.

I'll go ahead of you.

But Jacob says, no,

no, no, no, no, no,

no.

The kids are weak.

They're tired.

All these flocks and

sheep that they need

to be cared for.

They'll die if they're

pushed too hard.

You go on ahead, and

I'll go slowly behind

you.

I'll go at the pace

of the livestock and

at the children.

Until I go, I'll meet

you in Seir, okay?

You go on and wait

for me.

I'll be there soon,

but don't wait up too

long.

And so Esau says,

well, how about I leave

some of the people with

you?

And they'll escort you

there.

Jacob says, no, no,

no, no, brother.

You go on ahead.

We'll be fine.

I'll see you soon.

Of course, Jacob had no

intention of ever going

with Esau, did he?

He wasn't pushing his

luck here.

So verse 16 says,

Esau returned that day

to Seir, but Jacob, he

journeyed over to Succoth,

and there he built

himself a house and made

booths for his livestock,

and therefore the name

of that place is called

Succoth.

Moses ends this story by

telling us that Jacob

came safely to the city

of Shechem, which is in

the land of Canaan, on

his way from Paddan

Aram.

And he camped before the

city, and he bought

land from the sons of

Hamar and pitched his

tent and built an altar

and called it El Elohe

Israel, which means God,

the God of Israel.

Would you just look at

where Jacob has wound up

here to kind of bring

his story to an end?

And finally, after all of

this, but finally, at

long last, Jacob is

finally home.

His enemies are gone.

He is back in the

promised land.

He has set up booths.

He's built a home.

He's raised an altar there

for worship.

The promises are being

fulfilled.

His pilgrimage is over.

But most importantly, God

has proven himself faithful

yet again.

By his grace, he has

sustained Jacob through

many dangers, toils, and

snares.

He has already come.

Christian, I'll ask you

again, what do you fear?

We, like Jacob, are

pilgrims.

We are making our way

home.

Some of you are just

setting off on your

journey.

You're just beginning.

Others are rounding out

the final turn.

But we know that God has

promised us that eternity

with him is just ahead.

If you are in Christ by

faith, the true promised

land is waiting for us.

Soon and very soon, we

will no longer live in

these temporary shelters

and temporary places

and temporary societies.

We won't wrestle with

these tensions and these

enemies and these fears,

all these things that give

us worry.

If you're in Christ,

our certain futures that

you will live forever in

the new heavens and the new

earth where there will be

no sin and no death

and no enemy and no

temptation where all of

God's promises for us in

Christ will finally be

realized.

That's ahead of you,

Christian.

But until then, the

dangers around us are

very, very real, aren't

they?

There seem to be new

reasons to be fearful

every day while we still

journey onward here.

Fear and danger are in

every headline.

Fear and danger are around

every corner.

Here, the enemy still seeks

to destroy us.

Here, like Jacob, we can

seem hot and cold, off and

on, and we wonder how will

we make our way forward?

How will I overcome this

trial?

How will I face this enemy

that I fear?

How will I overcome?

How will I overcome?

Friend, you are not strong

enough to do it, but God

is.

We face every danger in the

confidence, church, that our

God is for us in Christ.

Our God will supply every need

of ours according to his

glorious riches in Christ

Jesus.

Our God will bless us, will

keep us, will make his face

shine upon us as we behold

the glory of God in the face

of Jesus Christ.

Father, we praise you for the

confidence that we have in you

and that we can only have in you,

and we acknowledge that there may

be some here who don't have that

confidence because they don't

know you, and so we pray, Lord,

would you give them the gift of

faith in Christ.

And for us, Lord, for the

church, we pray that we would

face the dangers that are around

us in our lives and in the world

with all the confidence of

knowing that our good and

faithful God will guide us

safely home.

We love you, Father.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.