Wrestling with the Sovereign God (Genesis 32)

Hear the word of the Lord. 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 the place Manhaim.

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 saying, We came to your brother Esau,

and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

He divided the people who were with him and the flocks and herds and 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 that 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

the 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 and the mothers with the children.

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

of the ocean 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,

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 to my Lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.

Then 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 the 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 Penuel, 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.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Amen. Would you pray with me?

Holy and sovereign Father, as we come now to the preaching of your word,

we ask that by the power of your spirit, you would be present with us,

that in your kindness, you would do what we cannot do,

but we are dependent on you to do, that you would bring your word to life,

that it would speak to us, that we would be built up,

strengthened into the image of your son.

All glory be to you, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, now and forever. Amen.

If I was to ask you, what did you do last week?

Where would you turn to to give me the most accurate breakdown of that?

For the majority of you, I'm guessing it's probably an app in your phone,

a calendar app. You have everything scheduled for your week.

Some of you might still keep a physical planner where you jot all the things down.

And still others might have a whiteboard in their house, or maybe you just keep it all in your head.

Whatever the case is, if we were to sit down and say, what did you have planned for last week?

And then we actually went through your week. 15 minutes by 15 minutes,

breaking it down moment by moment, event by event.

I would be shocked if more than half of what happened was actually what you would plan for.

Even the most prodigious planners amongst us can't actually account for what

happens moment by moment in a day.

You plan to drive from point A to point B, and maybe there's an accident on

the way. Maybe you have a flat tire.

We can't plan for everything. And for some of us, especially when we are planning

for big decisions, this can very easily lead to fear.

What if I don't make the right choice?

What if I'm not factoring in something that I need to be factoring in?

What if I'm missing something?

And we can be concerned that unless we plan things just right and execute our

plan just so, everything is going to fall apart.

As if God isn't sovereign over that particular outcome.

I know the history of many of you and the stories of many of you,

and this is something that we can do because of past events that have happened to us in our lives.

We can think that we have to control and make sure that everything goes just so.

And that's why Jacob is such a difficult character to categorize in scripture.

Because very often this is what we see Jacob doing. And so what we're really

asking is, is this prudence and wisdom or is this not trusting God?

And my guess is even in your own life, at times, that's a hard line to figure

out, let alone in the actions of someone else.

Is this prudence or is this doubt?

What we do know for certain in this passage is that it is motivated by fear.

Jacob is acting according to fear, which is almost never prudent.

And so as we look at our text today, what we'll see will become plain is that

God's sovereignty redeems our fearful actions.

God's sovereignty redeems our fearful actions. And we'll see this in two movements.

The fearful actions, verses 1 through 23, and the redemption, verses 24 through 32.

The fearful actions and the redemption.

We're going to dive into the story beginning with verse 1.

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, Menhaim.

Jacob is going. And if you were here last week, then you remember that he's

going because of leaving Laban, the 20 years of conflict that happened with Laban.

But if you weren't here last week or just don't recall, that's okay.

Let's make sure everyone is up to speed and on the same page.

Jacob, 20 years prior to this, fled this very brother that he is fearing in this passage.

Because the last thing that Esau said, or that Jacob heard that Esau said is, I am going to kill him.

So he left. Not a crazy idea.

Then he goes to Laban, who is his uncle, and spends 20 years working for him,

trying to earn various things. He's essentially working for free.

And now he's on his way back after the trickster has been tricked repeatedly.

He's on his way back with two wives, their two handmaidens who are also mothers

of his children, and an incredible blessing which God has given to him.

And when he comes back, he sees the angels of the Lord.

Imagine for just a moment that you spent 20 years in conflict.

You're going back home. And as you arrive at the place that you're going to

stop for the day, you see there are angels already camped there waiting for you.

What an incredible encouragement this must have been to Jacob.

You can't imagine that he was not moved by this.

And so he names this place Manhaim, which the camp or the camps,

probably meaning like two camps.

This is where I camp and also where God camps. is probably the idea he's trying to get across here.

But he is there with God's messengers. His servants, his angels are there with him.

And so Jacob sends his own messengers. Verse three, 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 Satan till 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.

See, Jacob is still not really sure.

He still wants to hedge his bets. He doesn't want to just show up on Esau,

the man who the last thing he said is, I'm going to kill him.

So he says, I'm going to send my messengers ahead of me.

Now there's an inherent risk here because he might kill those messengers.

But he sends these messengers on ahead of him.

And the message that he's looking for these messengers to relay is essentially,

Esau, I'm not here to take anything that's yours.

I have no desire to plunder or remove your possessions. I have all the possessions that I need.

This is not a conflict. I'm here peaceably. This is not competition anymore.

Whether or not those messengers actually relay that message to Esau, we're not really sure.

They certainly don't relay a message back from Esau. Rather,

verse 6 now, and the messengers return to Jacob saying, 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 herds and camels

into two camps, thinking, if Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it,

then the camp that is left will escape.

The two camps of his camp and God's camp, very quickly in Jacob's mind,

just becomes his two camps.

It's as if he forgets that he's camping where God's angels are.

And he says, wait a second, there are 400 men with him?

If he comes to kill us, here's what we'll do. We'll separate into two groups,

then one group gets away.

And friends, is this not how we act in fear? How can I minimize collateral damage?

How can I ensure that at least some part of this still goes the way that I was hoping it would?

It is amazing that almost immediately, he forgets.

He forgets that God is there with him.

But it's not surprising, because you and I have exactly done this.

I doubt that there's any of you there that I asked you, is God ever apart from you?

Does the Holy Spirit not live within you? You'd say, yes, of course. Of course, Riker.

I'm never alone. God is always present with me.

And yet, in our fear, we do exactly this. It's what makes Jacob so incredibly relatable.

Now, we don't divide our camp into two and say that when my brother arrives,

maybe he'll only kill one of them. Of course, we don't do that.

But we principally do this. We say, I'm going to limit the damage.

I'm going to manage the collateral fallout because I don't actually know if

I can trust that this is going to go the way that I want it to.

Jacob that we see here is the Jacob who has experienced 20 years sojourning

with Laban. So he's learned a thing or two.

He plans, but then immediately he goes to God in prayer.

Verse 9, 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, to your kindred, that I may do you good.

I am not worthy of the least of all of 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.

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.

See, Jacob is grown. This man who has spent his whole life wrestling and scheming,

literally beginning in the womb as he fought with his brother.

Clutching his brother's heel as he's born, then deceiving his brother to get

the birthright, and then working with his mom to deceive his father.

His life has been conflict.

But Jacob has always had the answer for this. He's smart enough.

He's strong enough he can solve the problem that's in front of him he is self-reliant,

but 20 years of the trickster being tricked has taught him a thing or two and

so he goes to god in prayer the first time we actually see jacob praying in

all of the bible he goes to god in prayer and his prayer is really good god

this is who you are god this is what you've said,

It's rooted in who God has revealed himself to be. And it's so transparent.

How often our prayers are so pallid and vapid in comparison.

How often do we fall on our knees before God and express ourselves like Jacob did? I am afraid, God.

Specifically because I'm afraid that Esau is going to come here and kill people.

The mothers and the children who can't defend themselves.

That's what my concern is, God. And yet you have made a promise.

You have said that this is true.

Jacob has learned. He's grown. This is a model for what our prayers should look like.

But Jacob is not yet Israel.

He has not yet been transformed. And so, he goes back to what he knows.

Yes, I pray to God, but he might need a little help making this happen.

So, verse 13, So he stayed there that night. He does not advance to see Esau.

From what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau.

Two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty

rams, thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls,

twenty female dockings and ten female 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 those ahead of you? You shall say, They belong to your servant Jacob.

They are a present for 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 the 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.

There's a couple of things going on here. One, Jacob is not doing what God told him to.

God told him to go back to his land. And he's on the very edge of it.

He's like, ah, but wait a second.

Let's make sure everything's lined up just perfectly first. Thank you.

Don't know if I could really share the gospel with that person,

God. What am I going to say?

I don't really have everything that ended up in my own mind.

What if they don't like me? I haven't built enough relationship with them yet,

is what it looks like for us.

But Jacob's stakes are probably higher than just losing a friendship,

like maybe losing his life and the life of all of his family.

So Jacob has this idea. I know what I'll do. I will send these gifts to Esau.

And it might make it so he's not mad at me anymore.

Commentators have also suggested it's pretty hard to march as a war band with

580 animals with you as well.

So if we need to run, it's a little easier to run now. They're slowed down a bit.

As if God can't have changed Esau in the 20 years that I've been gone.

His heart couldn't have been shaped or changed. The only one who can change

the way that Esau feels about me is me.

You see, prudence and wisdom, prudence and control.

Is it prudent? Is it manipulative? Is it not trusting? It is such a hard thing to find.

My guess is, with basically all of these actions of Jacob, we will never really know.

It'd be very difficult for us to look at this and say, this is why Jacob did

this. This is what's going on internally.

But what we can do is we can look at the negative side, the reason why he might

be doing it that's sinful and say, is that what motivates me to act?

How often do I doubt God's actions in other people's lives and presume that

I have to be the one that makes the change in their life?

How often do I not obey God because of fear?

How often do I have to have control of a situation before I'm sure that it's

actually going to be good? as if my control is benevolent and not my father.

And so he stays behind in the camp.

And almost certainly, sleepless night begins to pass.

In verse 22, the same night he arose and took his two wives,

his two female servants and his 11 children and crossed the fort of the Jabbok.

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

And Jacob was left alone. because this is what fear does.

This is always what fear does.

Fear isolates you. If you're married, you understand this.

Your fear is not your spouse's fear. Even when you fear the same things,

you fear the same things for slightly at least different reasons.

We cannot be united in fear. Fear isolates us.

So Jacob sends everyone else across.

And in his continued disobedience to God, he's not yet going.

He is left alone by himself.

This is what 20 years of work has got him. Terrified.

This is exactly where God meets him. Friends, if you've been in this place,

this dark night of the soul, when terror has gripped and consumed you,

when anxiety makes you feel like you're the only person who's ever dealt with

this or felt this way, when you've been here,

you know that this is where God in his kindness meets us.

Not because everything we've done to that moment was right, but oftentimes because

everything we've done leading up to that moment was wrong.

And so we have nowhere else left to churn. God comes and he meets us. He meets Jacob.

And Jacob was left alone, verse 24. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

This is the beginning of our second point, the redemption.

And it comes in a strange form, wrestling.

I don't know how many of you are avid wrestlers.

I don't mean like WWE wrestling. I'm more like Greco-Roman or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I don't know how many of you enjoy wrestling, like trying to grab a person and

overpower them and them trying to overpower you.

But that's what's going on here. And it seems like perhaps the most bizarre

way that God could encounter Jacob.

Make no mistake, this is God. This is the pre-incarnate second person of the Trinity.

It's called the theophany, where God shows up before the incarnation of Christ.

We see that later on. He blesses Jacob. Jacob says that he has seen God face

to face. So you know that's coming already. This is God.

But what a strange way for God to show up with Jacob. Why does he pick wrestling?

It's because this is what Jacob has actually been doing his entire life.

Every time he tried to control someone else, what he's really doing is wrestling

with God, trying to wrench control of reality out of God's hands and into his own.

And so at the end of this process, God confronts him.

And it reminds me of nothing so much as the end of Job, when God comes to Job

and says, stand like a man, and then spends three chapters tearing into him. Where were you?

The distinction here that we'll see is actually this creator creature distinction,

which is confusing because verse 25, when the man saw he did not prevail against Jacob.

What? Are you telling me that Jacob is stronger than God?

No, of course not.

No, Jacob is just refusing to relent. He's still fighting, still fighting, still fighting.

We don't even have an indication that there's any success at his fighting,

but he's still fighting. He's still struggling. He's refusing to submit.

And God certainly could have destroyed him. Essentially, instantly.

It would have taken less effort to destroy him than to sustain him.

But he doesn't because God has promised Jacob and God keeps his promises.

God is bound by the word that he gave to Jacob.

And so he doesn't destroy them. Rather, with a single finger,

he touched his hip socket.

And Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

See, if you are a wrestler or you've done athletics of any kind,

you understand that the hips are where all of your power comes from.

Cannot wrestle with a hip out of joint. You can't do it.

And so now Jacob really doesn't have even his own strength as a recourse. He can no longer fight.

And then God said, let me go for the day has broken.

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

This is the pivot of the whole thing. This still looks like manipulation,

perhaps to our ears, but understand Jacob is no longer in control.

He can do one thing and one thing only now.

Cling. He cannot control the situation anymore.

He can only hold on to God and say, I will not let you go until you bless me.

That's why this is often held up as a model for us in prayer.

Then we come to the end of ourselves, when we realize that we can no longer

twist things to make them appear the way that we want them to appear or to be.

At the end of ourselves, we cling to God and say, God, I cannot let you go.

I have nothing else unless you bless me.

And then we get this blessing, verse 27. And he said to him, what is your name?

And he said, Jacob, my name is deceiver. My name is trickster. My name is heel grabber.

My name is the shame that I carry for my past actions.

And he said, your name shall no longer be 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 me my name? And there he blessed him.

Jacob, you don't need to know. You know who I am. You know. You're going to

call this the place that you saw God face to face.

Why do you ask me my name? It's a.

God. With is a very interesting word because it does not mean against,

although sometimes it can,

also can mean alongside of, in the same trajectory of.

Jacob is the one who strives with God at his worst moments against,

in his best moments alongside.

That's who Jacob is now. He is now Israel.

Friends, I hope this sounds familiar to you, this experience,

being brought to the end of yourself, clinging to nothing but Christ.

God telling you, your name is no longer the shame that you carry over your past

actions. That is not who you are anymore.

Your name is now beloved child of the living God, holy, valuable, worthy.

That is who you are, friends. That is what is more true of you than who you

have been and the actions you have done.

Because of the same, the work of the same person here, the work of God,

the work of Christ in the incarnation, as he lived the life that we could not

live, died the death that we deserve to die and rose to heaven,

rising from the grave and then

ascending to heaven, that we could have eternal life and be sure of it.

And so we, like Jacob, look back and call the name of the place Peniel.

And Jacob says, for I've seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

This is really what it feels like in the dark night of the soul.

Those of you who are old enough to have experienced this understanding.

Those of you who are young enough, here, this is what it feels like.

When you've come to the end of yourself, you say, God has delivered my life

because nothing else would have.

I can hope in nothing else. My only hope is in God.

Verse 31, then the sun rose upon him as he passed, Penuel, 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.

So Jacob is transformed. He is changed. He's made into Israel. And what does he do?

Now, finally, after his transformation, he obeys. He moves forward.

See, this is not a let go and let God passage. That is not the point of this.

It actually requires his own action. He has to walk forward and now markedly

different than the way he walked in.

He now walks with a limp and it changes not only him, but his encounter with

God changes the life of an entire people.

Practice that is adopted because of this. They don't eat a particular piece

of meat on the thigh because of this.

Even though this is not recorded anywhere in Leviticus as far as food instructions,

it is a practice the Jews adopt because of this.

My guess is there are things in your own life that you have adopted because

of situations you've gone through like this.

Things that have changed you, things that will affect your children.

By God's grace, if they are good changes, things that will affect your grandchildren

and great-grandchildren.

This is how God works. He changes an individual and that individual goes and

changes others through God's work.

So may we be a people who do this well, who walk forward in faith and obedience.

May we be a people who cling to God, realizing that all of our plans and machinations

ultimately cannot achieve his end. God is the one who does that.

May we glorify him when things go well and churn to him in prayer when we have fear and anxieties.

Would you please pray with me, friends?

Sovereign and holy Father, Lord, we thank you that you are trustworthy,

that you are dependable, that we can churn to you in spite of our fears and anxieties.

Father, please help us to grow more in our trust of you.

Would you give us the knowledge and the understanding that all good things come from you?

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.