October 26, 2025: Wrestling with God - Genesis 32

Well, if you weren't on the edge of your seat, you are now.

The build up to this text is frightening, full of drama.

We've been working our way through Genesis.

As was mentioned, text is called or sorry, the sermon series

called A Legacy of Blessing, asking of the Bible the most

profound questions of all, What am I, who am I and why am I

here? The early chapters of Genesis

are devoted to ask, answering the question, What am I?

What does it mean to be a human being created in the image of

God, male and female, body and soul?

What does it mean to be human? As we continue to advance

through the chapters, we're learning more and more questions

about what does it mean to be human?

In a line of humans descended from ancestors, we're learning

the stories of Abraham and Isaac, and now Jacob.

Stories also deliver an answer to purpose.

Why am I here? What's the point of this

existence? And it's important for us to

think these things through because you live, my friends, in

a culture which is a marketplace of competing ideologies

wrestling, offering answers to these questions, some of them

very destructive. But not only are you in a

marketplace of ideas, those ideas come to you and to me

through stories. The stories that we are steeped

in shape our lives. And whether they are stories

that we watch on screens or stories that we read in the

pages of a book, or stories that we hear in the songs that we

listen to while we drive or walk, these stories are shaping

us. I was thinking a lot about this.

This week is Andrew Peterson's new album dropped a live concert

recording of him and his band covering Rich Mullins.

Rich Mullins died years ago, back when I was in college, and

Andrew Peterson is a living artist who has taken up many of

his songs and handed them off to another generation.

These name. If these names mean nothing to

you, that's fine, but I do think that it's good for me to share

with you places where myself and my family have drawn deep

encouragement. The name of this album is called

A Liturgy, a Legacy. Note that word and the songs of

Rich Mullins Live by Andrew Peterson and his friends.

One of my favorite Rich Mullins songs, and it's it is on this

album as well, has to do with Rich Mullins thinking in the

song about what it must be like for Jesus Christ to grow up and

be a little boy. Just like Rich grew up.

Rich of all places grew up in Indiana, just like some of

y'all, just like me. And he wonders in the song, what

what is it like for Jesus to grow up as a little boy around

Galilee? And he kind of toggles back and

forth between his life and Rich's life and thinks about

what it must be like. And he he comes down to this

idea in the song that, wow, you know what?

Jesus heard the same stories growing up that I did living in

a Christian home. What profound thought after all

these hundreds of years, centuries to think.

But if you know the stories of the Bible that you have a common

cultural experience with Jesus Christ himself.

This is the recurring theme in his song as he sings.

This is Rich's voice asking Jesus, and did they tell you

Jesus? Stories about the Saints of old,

stories about their faith. They say stories like that make

a boy grow bold. Stories like that make a man

walk straight. Our stories shape our souls, and

it is vital that the stories of the Bible are the centerpiece of

your narrative life. We are all rehearsing and living

out these stories, just in different ways, for they are

about fundamental, fundamental things about sin and grace and

faith, life and death, God, heaven and hell.

So as we have noted, the stories of the patriarchs come through

with repeated activity from a revealing God, giving promises

to Abraham and Isaac, and now Jacob.

Promises regarding a land or place to live in, promises to

become a great people, to have a family place where they belong,

where they are known, where they give and receive.

But also promises to have a mission, a common vision,

something to do together. And this is so important right

now in a time and a place where people are despairing from a

lack of people and total loneliness, despairing from a

lack of purpose, not knowing what this is all about.

They feel hopeless and lost because that's frankly what sin

does to us. If we don't receive from God

gracious provisions related to these categories our life, we

will flounder. Sin wrecks these categories.

Instead of a place to live, you have homelessness.

You have exile. You have to leave as Adam and

Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden, and as Jacob had to leave

his home when his older brother became murderously angry after

Jacob tricked him. You have to leave.

You don't have a place anymore. Sin wrecks our closest

relationships. Indeed, the first natural born

humans in existence or Cain and Abel.

Everybody's excited. Look the boys, until there's

enmity, rivalry and murder. Indeed, we're in suspense if

this Jacob and Esau story is going to be a Cain and Abel 2

point O. And as far as our mission in the

world to bless and be a blessing, sin makes us selfish

and it turns our encouraging words into discouraging words.

It turns honour into dishonour, gossip, slander.

It turns our truthful words into deceit and lies.

In fact, Jacob's name means deceiver.

So we need God. We need God to intervene with

His precious promises so that we are not likewise without a home,

without a family, agents of lies, deception, and death

instead of truth, goodness, beauty, and life.

This text this morning is the fulfillment text of an earlier

episode when God came to Jacob at night as he was on the run

from his brother. God comes to him in chapter 28

and gives him a great vision of a stairway to heaven and an

Oracle repeating to him the promises of Abraham and Isaac

before him. Jacob responds to this amazing

revelation. Verse 2021 Then Jacob made a vow

saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in his way,

that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so

that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord

shall be my God. And with this oath on his lips,

he has to leave the land. And as we've been learning in

the text, spends 20 long years oppressed by his Uncle Laban,

who turns out to be a bigger trickster than tricky Jacob.

But through this time of oppression, we learn that Jacob

is changing through the suffering, and he finally last

week leaves. Uncle Laban is on the run, and

there was an exciting chase scene as Laban catches up.

And what's going to happen? They're searching the tents.

And only by God's grace this resolves peacefully.

But then it seems that Jacob is out of the frying pan and into

the fire, for angry Esau is still out there somewhere, out

of the firing pan and into the fire.

Do you ever feel that way? Things just seem to go from bad

to worse. That's actually a famous title

to one of the chapters in The Hobbit.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The dwarves and Gandalf and Frodo finally escaped the lair

of the goblins and you're feeling a little sense of

relief, only to know it's only going to get worse.

They're chased now by the Wargs. If you don't know what this

means, how sad is your life? No kidding.

But it goes from bad to worse that they need an even greater

rescue to get them out of a terrible fix.

So now here we are in suspense. What's going to happen with

Jacob? At first we're pretty happy.

If you have your Bibles, I'm in Genesis chapter 32 to encourage

Genesis 32 · chapter mention

you to follow along. 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, Maha Naeem. Exciting text because God

promised to be with him. Angelic presence means God's

presence is with him. At first we're excited.

Jacob is excited. He realizes now it's time to

send messengers to go ahead of him to try to find Esau and talk

to him. Verse 3.

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

land of Sere, 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 there 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. It's a different picture of

Jacob now, one who had deceived his brother twice.

Now we have him referring to Jay to Esau as my Lord, and

referring to himself as my servant.

Now you can read this cynically, but I think Jacob, at this point

the narrative is a changed man. Verse 6 and the messengers

returned to Jacob saying we came to meet.

We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you and

there are 400 men with him. Let's stop right there.

That's like military language. That's terrifying.

That isn't the welcome to the neighborhood, Jacob.

I brought 400 dudes to say welcome to the neighborhood,

Jacob. That's terrifying.

That sounds like an army, a big one.

So of course, verse 7, Jacob responds appropriately to this

news. Then Jacob was greatly afraid

and distressed. Have you ever felt afraid?

Terrified. So scared that you were shaking,

your knees were knocking, you had no idea what you were going

to do? Totally exposed what's going to

happen to me? Greatly afraid and distressed,

he divided the people who are with him in the flocks and herds

and camels into two camps, thinking if Esau comes to 1 camp

and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.

He begins to make plans. And what you're going to see in

this text is Jacob's actions and plans above and below a prayer.

And often in Hebrew, you're supposed to look for things that

are sandwiched like that. And the main point is between

and what we'll see is that as Jacob is doing these actions,

defensive actions, thinking through what the plan is, he's

also going to engage God in a tremendous prayer.

Now, when you read these narratives, there aren't always

examples to follow, but what Jacob does here actually does

follow other patterns in Holy Scripture of how how we ought to

work with God in our lives. Saint Augustine says pray as

though everything depends on God and work as though it all

depends on you. And then we're supposed to do

these things sort of simultaneously and together.

And you kind of see that here. So my first point, the point of

this scene, first half the chapter is to pray according to

the promises We're going to see Jacob doing seeing what we

should do in a similar type of example to follow.

Pray according to the promises, the prayer, Are you ready in

verse 9? And Jacob said, oh, God of my

father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, He situates

himself in this prayer according to his context.

He's in the story, he's in the story of his grandfather.

He's in the story of his father before him.

He addresses the covenant keeping God of his Father's.

Then it becomes specific to himself.

Oh Lord, who said to me, return to your country and to your

kindred, that I may do your good.

He reminds God of his own promises to him, of his own

instructions. To him we get penitent, humble

language. In verse 10.

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. God, I'm not worthy.

This ambitious, wrestling, grasping, deceiving trickster

has been tempered by 20 long years of suffering and under

rivalry and oppression. And he's humbler and he gives

credit to God for what has happened.

And now his supplication, his request comes in verse 11.

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. And he reminds God of his own

word in verse 12. But you said I will surely do

you good and make your offspring as a sand of the sea, which

cannot be numbered for multitude.

So he praise according to the promises.

God, how can you let my brother kill me and all of these

children? Because you've promised us a

multitude. I have to return, but you've

promised to do good. Meet me in my great need

according to your provision and your protection, according to

your promises. O, we're going to see.

Now. After his prayer, he continues

to act. So he stayed there the night and

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

Esau. His strategy is going to be 1 of

waves of presents, like the 12 days of Christmas here.

It's going to keep bringing forth presents for Esau.

Maybe I can gain a hearing, soften this relationship. 200

female goats and 20 male goats. 200 ewes and 20 Rams. 30 milking

count camels in their calves. 40 cows and 10 bulls. 20 female

donkeys. 10 male donkeys. 5 golden ring nose.

It's not there. Just making sure you're paying

attention. What's the point?

Massive amounts of wealth going forward.

The guy who's trying to steal everything is now giving things

back. Verse 16 These he handed over to

his servants, every drove by itself, and he 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 these

belong? Where are you going and whose

are these ahead of you, then you shall say they belong to your

servant Jacob, your servant Jacob.

They are present sent to my Lord Esau, and moreover, he is behind

us. He likewise instructed the 2nd

and the 3rd 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.

Very important phrase, See his face.

It's a phrase in the Bible of reconciliation, and it's a good

one because when you have an enemy, you don't want to look at

them. You want to look at the floor,

you want to look at the wall, you want to look anywhere but

their face. I shall see his face, and that's

going to come up again at the end of the chapter.

Very important. May see his face.

Perhaps he will accept me. So the president passed on ahead

of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

So he's praying, he's planning, he's acting, he's praying

according to the promises that God has given him to have a

place. He's supposed to go back to the

land. The promise is that he's going

to have a people, a great nation that are going to come from all

these children and that he's going to have a purpose as well.

But we also see him referring to the past, the present, and the

future, which is also very helpful for us.

He's going back and rehearsing with God, God's prior revelation

and promises to him. This is a good practice for us.

The Christian life is always retrospective.

That means a looking back to the previous promises and

deliverances of God. They are part of your testimony.

They are holy. They are precious.

They should be rehearsed in your homes.

Parents tell those stories. Grandparents tell those stories.

Cousins, uncles tell those stories.

Home groups tell those stories. Let me tell you about a time

when I was hopeless. I was afraid, I was terrified.

I was alone, and God met me in my need.

Let me tell you. Let me tell you.

Let me tell you. So he looks back.

He looks back, but he also looks forward.

Because promises imply something that's coming, don't they?

I promise means future. God, you got to make good on

your promises because they're directly threatened by the 400

person welcoming committee. This is terrifying.

And he looks to the future. A Christian.

We look back, but we also look forward to the fulfillment of

all blessing and promise that our Lord has given us through

Holy Scripture. And by looking back and looking

forward, we have an anchor point, even if we're shaking

with fear for the present, that we may be with him and know that

we are never, ever alone. Pray according to the promises.

But the the text now shifts. It shifts into one of the

strange but very holy texts of Holy Scripture.

There are many of these, particularly, like extra holy

spots in Scripture, right when Moses meets God in the burning

Bush on Sinai and things get really weird.

The text has all kinds of deliberate ambiguities to give

you a sense of wonder and mystery and hush tones, and it's

actually going to raise a lot more questions for you than it

does give satisfying answers. And friends, that's exactly the

point. That's exactly the point.

Jacob has been wrestling since he was in the womb.

Remember the story? The twins are inside Rebecca and

they're wrestling. They're jostling together with

such force that she's terrified. She thinks that she's going to

die and the twins are going to die.

Even in the birth narrative, he comes out still holding on.

I got you by the ankle. That becomes a motif for his

life, this grasper, this overly ambitious younger brother who

lies and tricks and steals until Esau has had enough and he has

to flee. But now we have Jacob the

wrestler wrestling with a different type of something.

Let's read the text together. I'm in verse 22.

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

servants, and his eleven children and crossed the floor

to the Javik. 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 the man 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

Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God

and with men, and have prevailed.

The name Israel means he strives with God.

Verse 29 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 of the

place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face.

Remember I said, we're going to see that again 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.

Fascinating text. I was a wrestler in high school.

The longest match of my life was 8 minutes and 30 seconds, a

double overtime nightmare. It's awful.

It was only 8 minutes. How do they wrestle all night?

That I have no idea. And who is he wrestling?

It says a man. But then later Jacob says I saw

the face of God. And if you read in Hosea, it

implies an Angel. We don't know.

But what are the takeaways that this wrestling man is finally

wrestling with the right one? He's wrestling with God and

wrestling for Christians throughout centuries and even in

the Bible has to do with the toil, the struggle of wrestling

with God, even in prayer. And if you talk to old Saints,

you'll hear them use this language.

Oh, I'm wrestling with the Lord about that. 10 Me and Jesus, we

had to go to the mat because I just don't think my heart's in

the right place. And they describe a toil.

They describe a grappling. They describe hanging on with

the Lord until something changes, until there's a

wounding, or till there is a blessing.

It's a common testimony of the Saints from this text all the

way down. Jacob is injured by his opponent

so bad that he's going to have a chronic limp.

He's going to walk with a limp. The blessing that he received

seems to be involved with his injury, but he also is renamed,

and instead of being called deceiver, he's called one who

overcame. He's blessed and renamed, and he

testifies that it was only by God's grace I wasn't killed.

You could think for a second about some Jesus parallels when

you see Jesus wrestling in the Gospels.

Probably the closest thing is his toil in Gethsemane the night

before his ordeal, Wrestling in prayer with God all night long,

sweat coming down from his brow, his drops of blood.

He goes and wakes. His companions are sleepy.

He goes back and he prays. He's wrestling.

He's wrestling in prayer, but he hangs on, doesn't he?

And he comes up from that prayer to meet his arrest with so much

poise and determination and even a weird sense of tranquility as

he goes through the most horrible suffering imaginable,

physical and spiritual. He's a type of Jacob.

He's a type of New Israel. Jacob's wounded on the side.

Our Lord is wounded many places, but also in his side.

Jacob walks forever with a limp and holy scripture seems to

imply that Jesus bares his scars even in heaven.

Look one like a lamb that looks like it's he's been slain.

His post resurrection body invites the disciples to touch

the holes. Jacob walks with a limb.

Jesus bears the scars. Jacob overcomes and is given a

new name by grace. Jesus overcomes and the Bible

even says that he is given a new name, Nazing.

So as we consider the life of Jacob and the life of Jesus, we

consider our own lives, that we are those who wrestle with God

and we wrestle with God until he blesses us.

He blesses us with His precious promises.

He blesses us with His divine presence.

But sometimes, my friends, he even blesses us through

afflictions, doesn't he? And perhaps your testimony is a

similar one to Saint Paul. There was given to me a thorn in

my flesh. I prayed 3 times for it to be

removed. It was not removed, and it was

given to me for a purpose, purpose of sanctification,

purpose for being molded even more and more into the image of

the true and greater Jacob. So sometimes he does bless us

with afflictions, with injuries. And I'm sure in a room this size

we could tell testimony after testimony of that lesson that

you learn from that particular affliction that you'll never

forget. God shouts to us through our

pain, says Lewis. It's a megaphone.

So he blesses us with promises and presents, but he also

blesses us in some strange way with pain that we may shape, be

shaped and formed into a servant, humble, contrite, ready

for a brand new name. Oh Sinner, Oh Sinner, oh Sinner.

Now you are called Oh Christian. Oh Christian, Oh Christian.

His naming is a symbol of total change.

Awesome. Wrestle with him until he

blesses you. That wrestling is going to look

like struggle. It's often going to look like

the struggle of prayer, hanging on like the persistent widow.

One of my most important mentors at Dallas Seminary is John

Hannah, professor of church history.

And he would teach church history, but he was constantly

sprinkling his lectures with the most beautiful Nuggets of

wisdom. He said multiple times, Be

careful not to be too impressed by the impressive fancy people.

Probably the most powerful and important people in the Kingdom

of God are little old widows and poor people that everybody

ignores because you know what? They persist in prayer.

They are prayer warriors, often out of their great need.

John Hannah says they storm the gates of heaven.

Don't be too impressed with the fancy people.

And may we too, wrestle with Him until He blesses, often on our

knees, begging Him for relief. What's your story?

Maybe you've been wrestling with Him for a long time about a

specific thing. Maybe it's an unsaved family

member or a wayward child, or you're just so tired of being

alone and you wrestle with God in prayer.

Take heart, my friends. Hang on until He blesses you,

because He's blessing us all along the way.

Revelation chapter 3, and I'm going to conclude here.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

Jesus now is saying to the one who conquers, remember what

Jacob's new name, Israel means, the one who strives and

overcomes, to the overcomer, to the Conqueror, to the Israel

among you, to the one who conquers.

I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never shall he go out of it. And I will write on him the name

of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new

Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own

new name. Jesus, the overcomer gets a new

name. To the one who overcomes, he

gives a new name. What's your story, Christian?

Keep wrestling with God, unbeliever.

Cry out to him for grace and mercy.

Ask him for a new name. Cast down your idols and pray.

Lord, save me, I am yours. Lord, save me.

I am yours. Lord save me, I am yours.

He is most certainly faithful. He cannot break his word.

So this faithful God makes faithful promises.

By these promises we pray and we wrestle with him until he

blesses us with afflictions, with new names, and above all,

the fulfillment of his precious promises.

Let us pray. The Lord God in heaven, we bless

your name, and we thank you, for you have first loved us.

Do work in our hearts now. By your Holy Spirit, as we

wrestle with you, bless us and give us a new name.

It's in the name of Jesus the righteous we pray, and by the

Spirit, one God forevermore. Amen.