Why Does God Let Me Struggle?

Good morning. We are in Genesis 32 and 33 this

morning. If you don't have a Bible, there

is one under the seat in front of you.

We're going to start in chapter 32.

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 Manayam.

And Jacob sent messages before him to Esau his brother in the

land of Seer, the country of Edom, instructing them thus.

Thus you shall say to my Lord Esau.

Thus says your servant Jacob, I have so 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 400

men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid.

In distress 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 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 cross

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

with 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 200

male goats, 200 youths 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, every drove by itself and

said to his servants, Pass one ahead of me, and put a space

between drove and drove. He instructed the first, When

Esau, my brother meets you and ask you, to whom do you belong?

Where are you going, and whose and whose are these ahead of

you? Then you shall say they belong

to your servant Jacob, and they are 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 the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see

his face. Perhaps he will accept me.

So the President passed on ahead of him, and he himself saved

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 J Book.

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 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 shriven 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

asked my name? And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the name for the place, Pineal, saying, For I

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

The sun rose upon him as he passed Pineal limping because of

his hip. We're going to go to chapter 33,

verses one through 4. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and

looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and 400 men with him.

So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel, and the 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. This is the word of the Lord.

What's going on? Port City family and friends,

how are we doing? Good, good, good.

Well, my name is Ron and I am one of the pastors here.

And summer is officially among us.

All right? So that means the kids are home.

That means trips, travels, all the things.

And when you know one of the things for the Port City family,

you might recognize that there are a lot of young faces that

you don't recognize. That is because you know, with

summer being among us, shout out to Mercy Hill church and city

project. There's a some summer it's a

summer intensive program that a bunch of students that are here

with us this morning. I got an opportunity to spend

some time with them yesterday and we were looking at kind of

work and the city. And so if you don't recognize

this is for the port city family.

If you don't recognize a young person, say what's up to them,

ask them what they've learned and then ask them what you can,

how you can be praying for them this summer.

I'm sure that they will appreciate that.

We are also excited because we are going to be beginning our

first city project. I'm sorry, not city project,

city life, similar to city project, but a little different.

So we got a couple students this summer that's going to be going

through that. So church, I tell you that just

to be praying for them. We we love college students and

being in Norfolk, there are many universities and sort of and you

know earshot of of us and so we certainly want more college

students here. We love them.

It's certainly in a very pivotal time in their lives forgot to

get a hold of them and to really change the trajectory of their

entire lives and and kind of send them out.

And so do we praying for them? Do we praying for us?

We, we long to, to see this be our gathering every single week,

not just because we have some guests, but we want, you know,

students from all of of the new neighboring campuses to, to call

Port City home. So pray with me toward that end.

All right now. So because again, a lot of

people are new, we are finishing a series that we've been walking

through for the last couple weeks called Saints and

Scoundrels. And we've been looking

specifically at the life of Jacob.

And So what we're going to see is that Jacob is he's chosen by

God, he's loved by God, he is blessed by God, but he also is a

schemer. He's a manipulator.

He he runs, he tries to control situations and outcomes all the

time. He is both a St. and a

scoundrel. And like many texts today, we're

going to see both of those at play.

And if we're honest, that is the reality for us in the Christian

life. Sometimes I oftentimes our lives

are characterized by moments of great piety where we are devoted

to God. We are saying, Lord, I love you,

I trust you. And then in the very next

moment, we are sending an e-mail out of fear to our boss in order

to try to make sure that they didn't misunderstand our motive

or or that they didn't think something that was wrong.

So we say we trust, but yet sometimes our actions don't

align with that we are can find ourselves being both St. and

scoundrel. Well, today if, if you know, if

we have learned that like God loves Jacob, he's called him,

he's he's promised to bless him, why does he let Jacob wrestle

all night? Why does you know he allow him

to walk away limping? If God is going to bring him

home and bless him as he said, Why does the why is the road

filled with fear and weakness and confrontation and pain?

In other words, which is the title of today's sermon, Why

does God let me struggle? That is the question that we are

aiming to answer this morning. And if I could just give you the

answer and then I'll try to unpack it for you.

The answer is this. God often uses struggle to bring

us to the end of ourselves so that we can discover that he is

the true blessing that we are seeking.

And so again, before God changes Jacob's situation, he changes

Jacob and that's what we're going to see before he changes

the circumstances regarding his brother, he changes Jacob and we

see that in the name change. And we're going to, we're going

to get to all of that in just a moment.

So can we pray really quickly and then we'll we'll dive into

the text. Father, we love you, God, we

thank you so much for the summer.

And God, it's an opportunity for rest and for margin.

Lord, help us to not waste our summer.

Lord, I pray that you would allow this to be a time where we

reconnect with maybe friends or family members in ways that

maybe just the normal year doesn't allow.

And so, Father, we pray that you'd bless it.

Father, some of us have come into this room this morning

still trying to control the outcomes in our lives.

Would you meet us today in this text?

Would you show us Christ? Would you help us to trust you?

God, we thank you so much for your word that it speak to us.

And so father, what we know not would you teach us, Father, what

we have not would you give us and what we what we are not,

would you make us. And father, may the words of my

mouth and the meditations of my heart please be acceptable and

pleasing in your sight. And everybody who agreed with

that said Amen. All right.

So a couple weeks ago we were having a kickball tournament.

So we're still still talking about the kickball tournament.

And in a kickball tournament, you don't expect to dislocate

your shoulder. But of course, I did that,

right? It's like, Ron, you're kicking

the ball. How?

Listen, I I managed to dislocate my shoulder and I remember now

I've dislocated my shoulder 40 times between the two of them.

OK? So it's not a big deal.

Matter of fact, everybody was coming over and Tanner was like,

chill. Like, he's good.

He's done this all the time. Don't worry.

Don't call nobody. He's fine.

Relax. I remember the first time I got

dislocated at my shoulder. I go to this urgent care and

there is a practitioner there and like the the person is like

trying to wedge my arm and like, you know, move it.

And in that moment, I'm like, this is extremely painful.

Get away from me. It hurts and I'm like, you know,

eventually I allow them, they reset my arm and we're good and

all the pain kind of subsides, right?

I, I tell you that story many times.

I, I bet if we can, if we stop, stop for a moment, we can think

of times where there was something that we were going

through that was really, really painful in the moment, but later

on it was for our good, right. And so that, you know,

practitioner trying to reset my arm, really painful, but moments

later produced a lot of joy and a lot of, you know, comfort for

me. And so again, you know, but but

nobody likes to be in those moments, if we're honest, right?

Nobody wants to be alone. Nobody wants the struggle.

Nobody wants the, the, the, the limping.

You know, we want the answer, we want the deliverance.

We want sort of things to be sort of taken away from us.

But often times, sometimes God's grace to us is to allow us to,

to struggle so that we can kind of get to the end of ourselves.

You know, sometimes, you know, we may not have chosen to

struggle, you know, but God is doing something in the struggle.

And that's exactly where Jacob is.

Jacob, he has left Laban. He's going back home.

And there's one problem, Esau and Esau is his brother, whom he

stole the blessing from. And so he is very fearful.

He had to leave in order to, you know, save his life in order

from his brother, not to to kill him.

And so that's why Jacob, he runs in the first place.

And so 20 years later, you know, Jacob is headed home and home

sounds good, right? Until you remembered Esau.

All right. And so again, some of us, we

know what that's like if we are honest, right?

We want healing, but healing comes through facing something

that might be difficult. We want reconciliation, but that

requires we say sorry, or maybe it requires us having a hard

conversation. We want there to be peace in our

relationships with our coworkers, but it it requires

some humility. You want freedom, but it means

telling the truth. And So what we're going to see

through the the life of Jacob and, and through sort of as we

land the plane on this series, we're going to take this text in

three movements. We, we're going to see that God

is going to bring Jacob to the end of control.

We're going to see Jacob. God meets Jacob in the middle of

his struggle. And then we're going to see God

send Jacob forward with a blessing and a limp.

All right, so point number one is God brings Jacob to the end

of control. Look back with me at Genesis 32,

verse one and two. 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 named that place Mahenim.

OK, so I want to pause really quickly.

All right, So again, this is amazing because he's going back.

And what before he faces Esau, what do we find?

We find that God lets Jacob see that he is not alone.

He allows Jacob to see that he is, that he has his angels with

him. And so, you know, when Jacob is

facing one of his greatest fears, God shows him that he is

not alone. That is can be quite comforting

for some of us. Then he sends Jacob sends

messengers to Esau and they come back with terrifying news.

That terrifying news in verse 6 it says we came to your brother.

He's coming to meet you. But he has 400 men with him. 400

men does not sound like a welcoming committee.

Doesn't sound like they are there to so glad you're back.

It sounds like an army is coming right.

And how does Jacob respond? He is filled with great fear and

distress. Now let's watch what Jacob does

verse 7. He divided the people who were

with him, 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.

This is classic Jacob right here.

He's always calculated, always managing, scheming, always

trying to find an angle. Right.

And again, before we are quick to judge Jacob, how many of us

are that way? How many of us pray?

And then we panic plan, right? We, we, we say, Lord, I trust

you, you are sovereign. But then the next moment we are

up to 2:00 AM kind of thinking through all of the worst case

scenarios, trying to, you know, prevent them from happening.

And that's that's where we are. So Jacob is scared.

And when Jacob gets scared, he tries to control what is it for

you? I know what it is for me when I

am afraid or if, if things, if I'm ruffled, I try to I, I begin

to get harsh. I begin to get more controlling.

I begin to get more demanding and critical In those moments

where I am starting to be in a stressful situation.

What is it for you? Are you more cynical?

Are you more numb? Are you kind of despondent?

I'm just not even going to. I'm going to ignore.

Let's be clear. Listen, God, he is not reacting

to Jacob's mess. I need us to understand this.

God is redeeming through it, right?

And so God uses Jacob's schemes. He doesn't endorse them.

He doesn't say, hey, you should try to do this.

But despite what he does, God still uses him.

And God, you know, God's grace is so much bigger than Jacob's

mess and so much bigger than our mess as well, right?

Even our best attempts to get it right, to obey God and to honor,

we're going to miss it. We're going to maybe, you know,

think we were on it. And but God's grace is committed

to us as it is, as he is committed to Jacob.

And then something beautiful happens in the chat text.

Jacob prays. And this is one of the most

honest, beautiful prayers in all the Genesis chapter 32, verse 9,

Genesis 32:9

Here's what Jacob says. 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 Kendrick, that I may do you

good. I am not worthy of the least of

all the deeds and the of your steadfast love and all the

faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.

And then he says, verse 11, Please deliver me from the hand

of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him.

Friends, this, this is prayer. You know, prayer is is not

pretending that you are calm in sort of the moment of struggle.

It's just it's being honest. It is not cleaning up your

emotions, but it's being honest with them.

It's saying, God, I need you, Lord, I I am afraid.

Will you do this? I cannot without you.

Like you made this promise you love me.

I'm not guys. This is growth for Jacob.

For Jacob, this is not the the young heel grabbing,

manipulating, lying to to get things that he wanted.

This is somebody who is crying out to God.

This is the first time where he is using God's name, Yahweh, the

covenant name of God in a personal, intimate way.

And so it's kind of like Jacob is finally beginning to see God

for who he really is. And what does he do?

He say I'm not worthy. His immediate response is not

pride, but it's humility. The closer Jacob gets to God,

the more aware he becomes of God's faithfulness to him and

his unworthiness of it. And Jacob?

Begins to pray this promise back.

I love this he says in verse 12 he says, but you said guys,

that's the some of the best prayers that we can pray is

where we give God's words back to him when we're when we're

praying Scripture when we're praying his promises.

He said, Lord, you said I will surely do you good and make your

offspring as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for

multitude. Again, there is a Lord I I need

you. This is what you said he has

sort of come to the end of himself and for us again, this

is what it is for us. We must see ourselves in light

of who God is. And then our response is to say,

God, we need you to do this, whatever it is.

When you think of your current struggle, again, I need if you

don't intervene, if you don't, if you don't move, God, I can't.

Like I need you. But here's the reality.

If we don't see God, if we don't see our need, we won't pray.

So we can say that we are believing God, but are we

praying? Because if we're not praying,

then likely we are potentially trusting on other things, other

means, right? Jacob's schemes in this case.

So what does Jacob do right after this heartfelt prayer,

right after this declaration? God, I need you to do it.

What is he What does he do verse 13 So he stayed there that night

and from what he had with him, he took a present for his

brothers. Kenny read all the he said,

listen, I know you can do it. I know you promise, but I'm

going to send these goats just in case.

Listen, we see classic sainthood and scoundrelhood all at the

same time, right? Just a moment.

I mean verse later. Lord, I trust you, but let me,

let me scheme. Let me.

And again, guys, if we're honest, that's what we do.

We say, Lord, I trust you with my kids, but let me micromanage

everything that they do, right? Lord, I, Lord, I trust you with

this relationship, but let me make sure, let me manipulate

some things. Let me make sure they don't

forget about me or make sure that they see me and recognize

what I'm doing here. Lord, listen.

So Jacob, I, I appreciate the amens and because I, I know

that's what I do. So, so, yeah, I mean that that's

been, that's where Jacob is. So Jacob, he's not fully free

and Amen. I'm not either, but there's,

there's good news coming, right? He is still trying to manage

outcomes. He's still still trying to

secure the blessing by strategy. He's still trying to make sure

that tomorrow works out so that when he shows his brother shows

up, then kill him. Like he's still trying to like

Lord, you said, but I let me make sure, right?

And friends, this is exactly where God meets him.

So point #2 is God meets Jacob in the middle of his struggle.

Verse 24 And Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with

him until the breaking of the day.

And 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. I've dislocated my shoulder.

Dislocating the hip sounds really painful.

Holy moly, guys, this, this passage is wild.

Jacob, he's alone, he's in the dark.

He's afraid. His brother's coming.

His family, he's he sent them ahead.

They've already crossed. His possessions are have gone.

He's has nothing left to manage. And God shows up as a wrestler,

not as a motivational speaker, not as a life coach, not as a

comforter, a wrestler. Why?

Well, why does God show up this way?

I, I think is I, I say Jacob's been wrestling his whole life.

Jacob, he wrestled Esau in the womb.

He wrestled for hit the birthright.

He wrestled for the blessing. He wrestled with Laban.

He wrestled for the wise, for the flocks.

He he's been wrestling his whole life has been 1 long struggle

trying to secure what he wanted. Now God says Jacob, the real

wrestling is, has been with me, has always been with me.

And we, we usually think that our struggle is with the people,

with the circumstances, with the boss, with the parents, with the

spouse, with the enemies, with the past.

All of those struggles are real. Not trying to put those down,

but underneath all of them is this deep, the deepest struggle

which is with God. Can we trust God at his word?

Can we, will He bless me? Is He enough?

Can I surrender control and these things work out for my

good? Can I stop trying to secure my

own identity? Can I stop trying to seize

things and just receive it? Is God really good?

Does He really love me? That is often times at the heart

of all of the other things that we struggle with.

It really is just the smoke to the fire which is this struggle.

And Jacob wrestles all night. The man touches Jacob's hip

socket and is immediately out of joint one touch.

Now let's be clear, God is not struggling to win with Jacob

here. Like he'd never lack the power,

right? We see it if he he touched them

and the man's hip fell out of place, right?

So listen, he is restraining himself.

He he is not God was was really stooping to to wrestle with

Jacob, right? God could have ended him in any

moment. So why did God let it go all

night? Well, the point was not for God

to see how strong Jacob was. The point was for Jacob to find

out how weak he was so that he would cling, that he would cling

in in to God instead of his own strength.

And friends, listen, that's, that's, that's grace.

Painful, but that's grace God. Sometimes God loves us enough to

let us struggle, loves us long enough so we can get to the end

of ourselves and stop pretending that we're strong.

God sometimes wounds us in order to teach us that he alone is the

blessing, not the thing or the person or the promotion or the

circumstantial change. And that's hard if we're honest.

We don't like the struggle. We don't like the the infliction

of of pain. Jacob spent his whole life

trying to seize a blessing through strategy, through

manipulation. But blessing was never something

that he could grab. It was something that he had to

receive. And that night what Jacob really

needed was not protection from Esau, but it was God himself.

And that is what he got. That's what's offered to us, a

deeper knowledge of the one who is the blessing that we are

really seeking. Let's continue on in verse 26.

Then he said in the midst of his wrestling matches.

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

But God said, I'm sorry. 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 Jacob, but Israel.

For you have striven with God and with man and have prevailed.

Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name.

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

And then he blessed them. And then to end at the end of

verse 30, he says, For I have seen God face to face, yet my

life has been delivered. Jacob says, I'm not going to let

you go God until you bless me. Like bold for Jacob to say,

right? Is that OK for us to say God

like I'm not, I'm not leaving. I'm not until you bless me

'cause I, I think here that that is a good prayer.

I don't think it's entitlement. I think it is shows desperation.

It shows dependence. It says, God, if if I, if you

don't bless me, I have nothing. And I think if our prayers, life

closets were marked in that way, I think that honors God.

I think that is a demonstration, a mark of true faith, faith that

clings, faith that truth that refuses to run from God and

scheming into other things and sources.

And then I love this interaction, right?

I love this interaction. And then the man asks, what is

your name? You know, the last time Jacob

was asked his name, he didn't say Jacob.

He said his name was Esau. He lied.

And his whole life was kind of marked by that lie.

And in this, listen, this is great, in this moment, him

saying his name is Jacob. He's confessing who he is.

I'm a schemer. I'm a manipulator.

I am the deceiver. I'm the one who's been who's

been grabbing, striving. That's my name, that's who I am.

That's there's there's a confession there.

And friends, this is the good news.

Listen, Grace enters in when pretending ends like when we are

honest, when we confess, I am a Sinner.

We can receive a new identity as Jacob is going to, but we we can

come to the end. We don't have to sort of act

like or, you know, try to run away.

This is where he, he, he brings him to the end where he is

saying, this is who I am. And God gives him a new identity

because Jacob finally, he comes empty handed.

He, he's no longer trying to grab, he's no longer trying to

earn. He's no longer trying to get it

on his own. He receives it and listen.

And that's how we receive a new name in Christ.

It is not by trying to hide our past.

It is not trying to, you know, act like we got it together.

It's not trying to act like we are are are good enough.

It is by acknowledging how we show up, admitting our name,

admitting our sin, admitting our brokenness before God, not

performing, not trying to prove ourselves, but bringing the real

us before God in confession and repentance.

And Jacob prayed for deliverance from Esau and God answered, but

first again, God changed the man who prayed again, I just want to

remind us God's greatest work. It's not always just around us

in the circumstances. It's often in US and and he did

it in Jacob and and as we will see right, He sends them

forward. This is .3 sends them forward

with a limp and a blessing. Genesis 3231 is where I'm at.

It says the sun rose upon him as he passed Pineal limping past.

I'm sorry, limping because of his hip.

Guys, don't let's not miss that. So the sun rises again.

God just blessed Jacob. Jacob has a new name, Israel,

new identity. He's seen God face to face and

he has survived, right? But he's limping, friends, this

is Christianity, blessed and limping, stumbling forward, as

we like to say here, changed but weak, loved but still dependent,

given a new name but still needy, still carrying reminders

of our grace. And so if you are not in the

faith or if you are hanging around, please don't think that

I'm saying you come to God and all your problems change.

That is not what I'm saying. There is a limp, there is

evidence, but the but I love the beauty, the the limp isn't.

It's the evidence of God's grace in his life.

I'll, I'll get to that in a minute.

But I do want to talk about this, this reconciliation that

happens between Esau and Jacob. We didn't read the rest of 33,

but Jacob walks into chapter 33 limping and the matters within

Esau are still coming. God didn't remove the fact that

he still has to see his brother whom he lied to, who he thinks

wants to kill him, right? But he sends Jacob back into

that same situation, right? So he didn't just, you know,

remove him. And again, I think that's good

for us. Some of us want to just the the

the situation to be removed, to be done with, to not have to

face it. While God is determined to

transform us in the midst of that, as he transformed Jacob

and then sent him back into this encounter with his brother.

And so in verse 1 of chapter 33, this is the encounter with

Jacob, I'm sorry, with Esau. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and

looked, and behold, Esau was coming and 400 men with them,

and divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two

female servants. And he put the servants with

their children in front, and then Leah and the children in in

the back. He himself went on before them,

bowing to the ground seven times until his brother came near.

And what happens? Verse 4?

Esau ran to him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and

kissed them, and they wept. And so Jacob was expecting

death. He received and embraced.

He he said to Esau, he even said that Esau, to see your face is

like seeing the face of God. You accepted me.

Why? Why would he say that?

Because Jacob had just seen the face of God and lived.

Now he sees the face of his brother, whom he had wronged and

lives. And so God's grace with Jacob

becomes the pattern for Jacob's reconciliation with his brother.

And so the reconciliation, it happens, right?

They're reunited. But Genesis 33 again, if we

finish reading it, doesn't pretend that everything is OK

like it's not. And they live happily ever

after. There's no more strife, there's

no more tension. That's not what happens, right?

Jacob is still cautious around his brother.

The relationship is not instantly perfect.

And there there's wisdom here. Reconciliation doesn't mean like

forgiveness doesn't mean you necessarily forget.

Forgiveness doesn't always erase all of the consequences, right?

Walking with God doesn't mean everything works out.

But but guys, Jacob is different.

God did change him, but yet there is still a limb.

There is still some some, some residue of the strife and

attention that they've had in their relationship.

And this is true for the Christian life.

God's people often walk with a limp.

The limp is not proof that God abandoned Jacob, but rather it

is proof that God met Jacob in the struggle.

And I, I wonder how many of us that are believers, if we

reflect, many of us probably wouldn't have chose the season,

the grief, the the diagnosis, the waiting, the weakness that

we had to endure. But God met us there and God

changed us there. And although we still walk with

a limp, I know him in a way that I did not know him before.

I was a couple weeks ago, I had a a member of Port City who is

in this room and they don't know I'm telling this story, but it's

OK. They wounded me with their

words. They warned me about something

that I was doing that had a potential pitfall and and

downside. And in the moment I was like

being questioned and I didn't like it.

But the Lord used what they said to and I reflected on it and

they were 100% right. And it produced a lot of fruit

in my life since that conversation.

The womb wasn't didn't feel good, but it made me better and

that I am grateful for. And so as we kind of work toward

a close, how does Jesus, how does the gospel unlock this

passage for us? Well, friends, Jacob wrestled

with God and he walked away alive, like wounded, but alive

that again, that shouldn't have happened.

We're talking a guilty, manipulative man grabbing the

heel of an holy God, not heel grabbing hold of a holy God,

right? He should have been crushed

instantly. Should have been.

Instead, God restrained. God limited himself to let Jacob

wrestle him. He let Jacob hold on.

He even let Jacob prevail and God is not, he's not weak here.

He's not weak by nature. He became weak by choice.

In Genesis 32. He restrained his power so that

Jacob could receive the blessing instead of judgment.

Jacob limped away saying, I have seen God face to face, but yet

my life has been spared. Guys, this points to Christ at

the cross. God does not merely appear to be

weak, He truly takes on weakness.

He becomes flesh, He becomes vulnerable.

He lets sinful people seize him, strike him, mock him, crucify

him. And the final judgment that

Jacob deserves, that we deserve it, falls on Jesus himself.

Jacob, I'm sorry. Jesus is the true and better

Jacob who lays down his life for the schemers, for those grasping

for control, for those trying to manipulate.

Jacob wrestled with God and was spared.

Jesus entered the the judgement of God for sinners and was

crushed in our place. Jacob limped away with a

blessing. Jesus was broken so that we

could receive the blessing. Jacob held on to to God, risking

his life to receive the blessing.

But Jesus held on at the cost of his life, not because he done

anything wrong, but so that we could secure the blessing.

Jesus won by losing. He conquered by being conquered.

He defeated sin by laying down his life.

And because Jesus was wounded, we are healed, friends.

Because Jesus was rejected, we are and can be accepted.

And so for the believers in the room, some of us are wrestling

with things right now. Maybe it's not a brother.

Maybe it's a marriage that feels like it's on the rocks or

fragile. Maybe it is a a diagnosis of a

family member. Maybe it is a a child that is

not walking in the way that you would want them to.

Maybe it's uncertainty about the future and what it holds for

you. Maybe it is a conversation that

you've avoided for years. Listen, don't mistake the

struggle for God's absence. He is there, He's with us, He's

with you. And when we think about what

we've seen today, God brought Jacob to the end of his control.

God met him in the middle of his struggle.

God sent him forward with a limp and a blessing.

And that's the pattern God dealt before.

God dealt with Esau again. He, he dealt with Jacob before

he changed his circumstance. He oftentimes he changes us and

so some of us are focused to get, you know, we're ready to

get out of the struggle. We're focused on the season that

is ahead. The struggle.

The struggle may be the very place that God is teaching you

to trust him. The struggle may be the very

place where God is exposing something so that you can learn

to lean on him. The struggle may be the very

place where God is teaching you that he himself is the blessing

that you have been after the sun rose and he was still limping.

Don't don't miss that. Again guys, the limping is not

it is not absence. It is evidence, right?

God, you know through this, Jacob teaches us that God's

grace often meets us before the circumstances change.

And so one of my, my charges to you is that that we would pray

like Jacob. God, I will not let you go

unless you bless me. But we'd also pray like Jesus,

not my will, but yours be done. Because the reality is, is

though we still have a lint like Christ, he is enough.

He is enough for whatever it is that we are facing, not because

we know what tomorrow holds, not because the struggle is over,

not because the lamp is gone, but because of the God who meets

us in the darkness, because of the God who is with us in the

midst of the struggle. And listen, if you are an

unbeliever, I said this, I do want to say it again.

I want you to hear that this is an invitation.

This is not an invitation to clean yourself up and the the

struggle that you have will be no more.

The invitation is to come to Jesus with all of your mess,

with who you really are, with your real name, with your real

struggles, with your real sins, your real shortcomings.

Come to the one who you've been avoiding and you've been chasing

everything else Come to him. Jesus died and he rose so that

we could be given a new name, so that we could not earn a new

life by our strength, but receive it by faith.

And so in the midst of our struggle, would we remember that

He's there and that He invites us to to experience Him in the

midst of our struggle. Let's pray.