Genesis 32:22-28 | Wrestling with God and living to tell about it.

And I got to all right, so I know some of you guys know this,

but there are three types of wrestling.

You have wrestling and wrestling is what you see on Saturdays.

You see people jumping off of ropes and hitting each other and

heads with chairs. It is the most entertaining

thing. We call WWE soap opera for men,

right? So you ladies might have like

your soap operas and your Love Island and all that good stuff,

but we have WWE and that's our soap opera.

So don't yell at us when we watch it.

And then we have wrestling, which is like the Olympic style

wrestling, the three, two-minute rounds.

You get points, you try to pin your opponent.

But then my favorite is lucha libre, and lucha libre is

Mexican style wrestling and it is out of control.

I mean, people are jumping off robes doing flips.

I mean, it, the storylines are even crazier.

It, it's, it's incredible. I love watching lucha libre.

And one of the things with lucha libre is the worst thing that

you could do to an opponent is remove their mask.

So when two people are wrestling and the storyline gives that,

and then it's one of those like the loser has to remove their

mask and show their identity to the world man.

Like when that happens or when they're fighting and the person

starts to take their mask off, the crowd goes crazy.

The crowd is like, don't do it. No, leave me mask at us alone.

Like they like leave them alone. Don't do it.

And then when the mask comes off, the person whose mask came

off, they're all ashamed and they're they're trying to cover

their and run out of the arena. And they're like all worried and

concerned. And then the victor stands in

the middle of the ring and he's holding the person's mask in the

air. And what we're going to look at

today is that tale of the take, because you know, we're doing

Fight Club. On one side you have Jacob

Surprise, 61200 and 30 pounds, 97 years old.

Then on the other side, you have God Almighty.

I can't describe him. All I know is that he could

probably kill Jacob like that. And what we're going to watch

today is that they go at it. There is a lucha match, there is

a wrestling match that goes down.

But here's the thing, Jacob wins because God pins them.

And when we wrestle with the things of God, nobody ever talks

about like we wrestle with our faith, we wrestle with some of

the beliefs, we wrestle with some of the teachings and

scripture, but nobody ever talks like what do you do when God

wrestles you, not you wrestle with him.

And Jacob is going to get find himself in a wrestling match.

And the way that Jacob comes out successful is that his mask is

removed and God is standing there and God's like, man, I'm

so glad you finally gave up. You win.

It's so backwards because when we talk about wrestling, like

now we got to pin them, we got to fight them, and we don't want

to submit. And it's like, no, but by the

way that you win when God wrestles with you is that you

submit. And when you submit and you give

in to what God is doing, you win.

And we're going to look at what this looks like to us.

So let's fight. So before we dive into the text

room in Genesis chapter 32, we're only look at 10 verses.

Genesis 32 · chapter mention

We're starting verse 22. I need to catch us up, right?

Because this story is not going to make too much sense.

So we don't understand Jacob. So for you guys that don't know

and Genesis, you have Jacob. Jacob is Esau's brother.

And when they were born, Esau came out first.

And the Bible says that Jacob grabbed his heel.

So we already know what kind of person Jacob's going to be.

You know, when Livia was born, that girl came out screaming.

Like all the nurses looked at me and they're like, she got some

pipes on her. And I was like, Nah, man, she's

not going to be that loud. It's just a baby.

They write. She got she could yell like she

had some pipes on her. Girl likes to sing like it is

like. So we see it early on.

Jacob comes out of the womb holding Esau's heel.

So we know the type of guy that Jacob's going to be.

He's a schemer. He's always trying to hustle.

He's always trying to find out ways that he could get the one.

Like he's, he's going to hustle people like that's what he does

in his life. Then later on we see Jacob, he

goes to his father Isaac, and he steals his brother Esau's

birthright because he schemes it, right?

He hustles his brother. He he steals the birthright.

Esau's like, no, you didn't. And then Jacob's like, yes, I

did. And Esau's like, I'm going to

kill you now. So then Jacob takes off running.

He goes to Lana Heron. When he gets there, he works

under his uncle. He falls in love with a girl

named Rachel because all Rachels are beautiful.

I know you're watching, girl. All right, So what the uncle

does, the uncle schemes them. He's like, well, if you want to

marry Rachel, you got to work for me for seven years.

And he's like, I could do that. She's worth it.

Works for him seven years. The night of their wedding, he

switches him out and he gives Jacob Leah.

Now Leah's not as cute, but she has a great personality.

I'm joking. All right.

So he gets with Leah and then Jacob's like, hold on a second.

I wanted Rachel like I work for her.

And then he's like, well, you got to work another seven years

if you want to marry Rachel. And he goes, I'm going to do it.

So he works another seven years. Now Jacob, he is grown.

Now he he has Leah. He's married to Leah and Rachel.

The Bible says that he has eleven children at this time in

his life. 11 children, 2 wives, 2 concubines, lots of land, lots

of property. He has a whole bunch of stuff.

20 years has passed since his incident with Esau and God is

now calling him back to Canaan. And God's like, I want you to go

back to your brother. And Jacob is terrified.

Jacob is like, this dude is probably going to kill me when

he sees me. So Jacob is obeying the Lord and

I, and as I'm reading this, I'm like, man, that's a long span of

time. But if you look at Jacob's life,

he's married now. He has more responsibility now.

And I just felt the Lord. Just point out a few things that

maybe for some of us, the season we're at versus the season where

we're going to all it is the difference is you need to grow

up. You need to mature and Jacob in

this season of his life, now he has more responsibility.

He has wives, he has he has things that he has to overlook.

And now God is like, OK, now I need you to move to Canaan.

It's time for you to go back to Canaan.

And Jacob's like, man, but I got my brother wants to kill me.

Still, for 20 years, Jacob has carried this with him.

So what does he do? He starts sending gifts to his

brother. He sends them camels, he sends

them all this livestock. And he's, he's kind of like

lowering the blow. And God comes to Jacob and says,

I want you to go reconcile with your brother.

And Jacob is terrified, but God has a bigger plan.

So Jacob goes, and this is where we live off.

So Jacob that night, verse 22 in chapter 32, that night Jacob got

up and took his two wives, his two female servants, his eleven

sons and a Partridge and a pear tree.

I'm joking. That's the message version.

And crossed the Ford of the jabuk after he had sent them

across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

Now don't miss these two verses. This, these two verses say a lot

when we look at the story of Jacob right here, right?

So at night, remember at night if you're underlining something,

go back to 22 for me. If you're underlining something,

remember at night, because what we see in the scriptures is

throughout Jacob's life, God comes to him at night.

God comes to Jacob when he's all alone.

God speaks to him in dreams, kind of like his son Joseph,

God. This is the way that God kind of

works with Jacob. And then Jacob, he gets up and

he takes he now listen, he's following what God is telling

him to do. He is in obedience to God.

And we see that because it says that they crossed the Ford of

Jaboka. I can't even say that word.

And he crosses the Fort. Now we have to look.

Whenever there's a name or a title of a city or a place in

Scripture, you got to pay attention.

All right, So this is a stream, right?

It's 60 to 65 miles long. It's east of the Jordan River.

It flows into the midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead

Sea. What is this telling us?

Listen, Jacob is going, and now he has his back to this stream.

There's no retreat. There is no running away.

He's obeying the Lord. He's doing what God's told him

to do. If Esau was going to do a

surprise attack, Jacob was like, man, this is the spot that he's

probably going to do that. And if Esau comes with all of

his people and all his army and all his boys to take Jacob out

and all his people and all his family, they are stuck like

Chuck. There is no going anywhere.

Jacob put himself in a position where there's no retreat and

listen. When it comes to our obedience

with God, many of us look at obedience with I need a safety

net and I need a way to get through it and listen.

With obedience, there is no safety net.

God is our safety net. His calling on what we're trying

to do is our safety net. So we go in fearlessly, but

there's an issue. So he sends everybody across.

He sends all the positions across.

Listen, this is a demonstration of faith because Jacob left

himself to no retreat. My family's over there.

My positions are over there. There is no turning back now,

Lord, I am doing what you have called me to do.

And listen, Jacob had a lot of responsibility.

He had all his family, all his people, all his stuff.

Man, he could have died 1000 deaths of busyness and sometimes

it takes God getting you alone so that way you could listen to

him. Jacob was doing what God told

him to do. He was on the move, but there

was something else that God needed from Jacob.

So look what happens. Look at the next verse.

So Jacob, he was left all alone, right?

So this is usually I believe that Jacob was by himself

purposely so he could be in prayer with God based on maybe

he was worried about what was coming.

So he was in prayer with God. And look who shows up, it says a

man wrestled him till Daybreak. Now who's this man?

Well, based off Hosea 12 verse four, we know that this is an

Angel of the Lord. We also see this in in Exodus

Exodus 3:2

chapter 3 verse 2. It says an Angel of the Lord

showed up. But what a lot of scholars are

saying is that this is what we call a Christophany.

So this is like an Incarnate image of Christ that shows up on

the scene. We see this in the book of

Daniel when Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego get thrown

into the fire. And then like the king is like,

hold on. There's like a like the a son of

a gods in there. Like there's another person in

there. That's what we call a

Christophany. So think about this as Jacob is

praying, asking the Lord, he gets a single leg takedown.

Somebody shows up, Sweet Boom, probably suplexes him.

But I also want us to see something.

The Bible doesn't say that Jacob wrestled with God.

The Bible says that this man that that God wrestled with

Jacob. There's a big difference here.

And for many of us when we look at our lives and we start

noticing like man, there's some weird stuff like like God, I, I

feel there's something in my life and listen, it's not you.

It may be God trying to get something out of your life

because he has something for you and he knows that you will not

surrender it. He knows that you're not going

to come to him in submission. So for some of us who are hard

headed and some of us who are prideful and some of us who are

self-sufficient, God has got to wrestle you down and yank that

sucker out of your life so that way you can listen to Him now.

And for many of us, it's very painful, it hurts, it's hard.

And God is there and He's and there's a purpose for this

battle. So Jake, Jacob is left alone and

God wanted something from him. And what God wanted Jacob to

sacrifice was all his his proud self-reliance and his fleshly

scheming that we see all through his life.

Jacob was about Jacob. And I want us to understand this

because a lot of us can do the right thing, but do it the wrong

way. And many of us do the right

thing thinking that we're doing good.

But listen, not everything good is from God.

Be careful. So we're trying to do the right

thing. And as I was studying the text,

I was like, man, God has something so a big for for

Jacob, it goes beyond reconciliation with Esau.

But God's like before I do this for you, I need I need you to

surrender to me. I can't give you this blessing

until you until there's something I take out of your

life. And for Jacob it was his

self-reliance, his fleshly scheming.

And God came to take these from him.

And God came by force necessary because God understood the kind

of man that Jacob was. Jacob was hard headed.

Jacob liked to control everything.

Jacob was self reliant. He wasn't just going to

surrender that to God. So God said, OK, bet, boom,

let's fight, it's time to go, let's go.

And God is there wrestling with Jacob.

And I started thinking about this because there's a

difference between being led and being driven.

And when you're being LED, you're being led by the Lord.

So when you're being led by the Lord, that means that there is a

that, that the Lord, the Spirit is leading you.

So if God is leading you, that means that God determines the

place, but also the pace of things.

So when God, so when you're operating in obedience to God

and you know that it is the Lord who's leading you and you're

following God, the pace of things makes sense and the place

of things makes sense and things are working as they should.

God is breathing on it. But some of us walk in obedience

to the Lord, but we're being driven by something else, and

that's Jacob. Jacob was not being led by the

Spirit of the Lord. Jacob was being driven by his

dysfunctions. And many of us do things in

obedience to God where God tells us, this is what I want you to

do, this is what I'm calling you to, But you're not being led by

the Spirit, you're being led by your dysfunctions.

And God needed to RIP that out of us, and He needed to RIP that

out of Jacob. Because when you're being led by

your dysfunction, then that means that your dysfunction

determines the pace and the place of things.

That's why when you're trying to work in obedience, you're just

stressed out all the time and burnout creeps in and nothing is

working. Why?

Because you're being led by your dysfunctions and not by the

Spirit, but you're doing it in the name of the Lord.

And many of us do this. Listen, man, we are all broken

people, man. We have insecurities that lead

us. There's some performance

orientation issues that we have in our lives, man.

There's some self-image issues, there's some control issues,

there's immaturity issues. There's some stuff that we all

grew up with. Maybe our parents grew us up in

a certain way and those things bleed in.

Let me say it better this way, because a lot of us also follow

the Lord and we try to do things for God, but we want

affirmation. God, I'm doing what you've

called me to do, but God, I want to applause as well.

I want the platform, I want the lights.

I want my name to shine right next to your name.

And we do this for affirmation. Many of us grew up with this

whole idea of the only way I'll get a hug is if I jump through a

hoop. So we go through life looking

and we're being led by our dysfunctions.

And Jacob was in obedience to God.

But the thing that led Jacob in obedience to God was not God

himself. Jacob had some things inside of

his life that he was fighting with, and they were this whole

like scheming self. Like, what can I get out of it?

I took my brother's birthright. God was going to bless me

regardless. Why did I take my brother's

birthright, Man? Because you're selfish.

And many of us lead out of that place.

So instead of God using you for ministry, you use ministry to

try to use God for you. That's a hard thing to take.

Like they say, if you can't say Amen, you better say Ouch.

Like, like, man, when the guy reveals to me, I was like, man,

that that's like, man, I've done that before as a pastor, as

somebody in ministry. Like I've fallen into this trap

where because we want to use ministry for ourselves, we end

up eating off the church and we take from the church and we

become consumers of the church and listen.

And we disguise our selfishness and our pride with a ministry

wrapping paper and a big fat bow that says service.

And at the same time, we're doing all these things for God.

But in the back of our minds we're like, no, no, but I want

some of that too. I want some of that glory and

God's like I've called you to this, but the only way that

you're going to be able to truly accomplish what I've called you

to is that you're going to have to surrender some of this stuff.

And for some of us, we're like, heck, 9 surrendering you crazy.

That's who I am. Like I said, like some of us,

like bone thugs N harmony me no surrender, right?

I mean like like like we're that's kind of where we're at.

Like now. I ain't weak.

I'm surrender to no, but I don't tap out like I'm, I'm, I'm

prideful. I'm a man and guys like, OK,

well, I, I have a calling I have in your life.

And in order for me to accomplish what my purpose is,

I'm going to have to RIP that thing out.

You know, I was look at this as I was looking, I mean, as I was

looking at Scripture, you know, even before Jesus started his

earthly ministry, Jesus goes to John the Baptist, he gets

baptized. This is before Jesus did

anything in his earthly ministry.

He was 30 years old. And as he becomes baptized, the

Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove.

And God says this is my son, my beloved son, whom I'm well

pleased Jesus didn't do one thing.

And God says I affirm him. See, Jesus is doing ministry out

of affirmation, not for it. Many of us do ministry because

we want it. We want the affirmation.

We want people to praise us. And if you're not emotionally

healthy and you're not in good standing with God, you're going

to end up doing ministry out of affirmation and not gratitude.

And God is going to have to RIP some of that stuff out because

he has a great plan for you and he has a great plan for us.

And when that happens, sanctification starts to look

like moralism. Sanctification is US

transforming and conforming to the image of Christ.

So for many of us, it's like, man, God changed my life, but

now I'm not a liar anymore. I don't steal anymore.

I don't make up stories anymore. I don't sleep around anymore.

And you're trying to throw your identity based on what you used

to do and not do. But no, it's not about a title

of what you used to do not do. Sanctification is like, I have

Christ in his spirit living in me.

And because I love Jesus and because Christ in the Spirit

live in me, I no longer want to sin.

I don't care anymore. Like this stuff doesn't please

the like this doesn't please me anymore.

Sanctification is looking more like Christ, not looking more

like moralism. There's more to it.

So we have to be careful. And the only way that we achieve

this is that we address our brokenness, which leads me to

point number one. We got four of these things that

your vadnais. You being bad is always driven

by brokenness. Some of us are like Rick, I

can't change. I'm trying to change.

I'm trying to do stuff like my addictions are too strong.

I can't, I can't change stuff like I can't change the way I

act. It's who I am.

It's I'm a product of my environment.

Listen, your vadnais is not because of your past or where

you're from. Your vadnais is because of your

brokenness. And until you address the

brokenness in your life, until God changes the heart, until God

does something that no man can do, which is the forgiveness of

sin and the repentance of your life, and He gives you a heart

of flesh and he changes for a heart of stone.

Until you have that, you can't address the behavior and the

vadnais that you are bleeding out.

Listen, Jacob, even in his obedience to God had some

brokenness in him, the way that he acted, the way he treated

people, the way he used people, that Vadnais was not coming out

of who he was, that that was coming out of a brokenness in

his life, and God had to address it.

And what does God do? God wrestles him to the ground.

In order to fix our Vadnais, we got to fix our brokenness first.

God could fix the heart. Man can't.

And if you're not going to surrender, you're going to

struggle like I'm just being honest.

I've been there. If we don't surrender to Christ,

there's going to be a struggle that ensues in our lives.

And look what happens. Look at the next verse.

Look at verse 25. He says man, when the man saw

that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's

hip so that his hip was wretched as he wrestled with the man.

And then 26 And then the man said, let me go for his

Daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not

let you go unless you bless me. Oh, this is crazy.

So think about this. They're wrestling, they are

struggling. They're on preparing.

I could just picture on the floor, single leg takedown, arm

bar, ankle lock, all this stuff. You go tap.

No, I'm not going to tap. Flip some.

They're just going. And listen, I don't know if

y'all have ever wrestled before. It's exhausting.

I don't know how this 97 year old man did it.

I could barely last three minutes and I've done wrestling,

I've done judo, I've done all that stuff.

And listen, you got to be in some physical shape.

You got to be in some tip top shape.

I love what Dan Gable said. Dan Gable is an Olympic gold

medal wrestler and he has a famous quote that says once

you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy.

It's difficult. So he's wrestling.

And here's what's amazing with Jacob.

Jacob Hung in there with him. It says when the man saw that he

could not overpower him, he touched Jacob's socket, his hip.

So what are you saying? Like Ricky, like Jacob was able

to wrestle with God. He hung like his, like, no, no,

no, hold on, like don't get ahead of ourselves 'cause God

could have easily ended it like that.

But you know what God does? He will be there with you until

you finally wear yourself out and you find yourself holding on

for dear life. That's exactly what happened to

Jacob. Jacob did not win this fight.

God did. So our determination to have our

own way is actually us trying to win over against God.

So we're fighting. We're like, no, it's my way,

God, my way, God, my way, God. And God is there wrestling with

you. And he's like, uh huh, OK.

Yeah, all right. Uh huh.

Yeah. You're like, no, God, my way, my

way. It's all about me.

It's my stuff. And God is there just pulling

and pushing, and he's there wrestling with you.

And I truly believe that God allows us to struggle.

So that way we find ourselves at a place where we are just

holding on for dear life. And look what God does.

You know what he does? He touches the socket of Jacob's

hip. And I started thinking I was

like, man, that's kind of smart. Because if anybody knows

anything about wrestling, the two most important components of

wrestling in the human body are your hips and your abs.

And I started looking at it. I was like, man, why are the

hips so important to a wrestler? Listen, it says, the hips are a

key source of power for wrestlers.

They enable them to perform explosive movements and change

direction quickly. Your hips also serve as takedown

defense. So when somebody shoots at you,

you lock your hips and they can't take you down.

Isn't it interesting that the thing that God ruined for Jake,

the thing that got hurt and Jacob was the very thing that

gave Jacob power to rule over his life?

Because all through Jacob's life, Jacob had the ability to

make some explosive decisions. He had the ability to change

direction quickly. And what God does is God hits

you not where it hurts. God hits you where it works.

And for many of us, we think, oh, God's going to hit me where

it hurts the most. No, no, no, no.

Because the depths of your heart reveal that the things that you

care about, you make things work even if it's not good for you.

And God knew, like Jay, it always lived Jacob's life.

It always worked for him. He was a schemer.

He always got stuff from people. He always hustled people.

He was able to do these things. And God hit him right where it

works. So God touched his hip.

Now Jacob can't wrestle no more. He's out.

So there goes a self-sufficiency right there.

He can't move now. God hit him where it works.

Now Jacob probably felt drained. He probably felt defeated.

In verse 26 it says the man said, hey, let me go.

It's Daybreak man. We've been going at this all

night. But look what it says.

It says I will let you. I will not let you go unless you

bless me. That means that Jacob was

holding on for dear life. Jacob is waiting for the referee

to ring the bell. And if you ever watch boxing, if

you ever watch a heavyweight fight where somebody's

exhausted, you know what they do.

They just hold on. It's the most annoying thing in

the world. When you pay for pay-per-view,

you're like bro, the next 5 rounds you're just like hugging

each other. Brother is holding on for dear

life because he knows if he lets go, he's going to hit the

canvas. Same thing with UFC, same thing

with any combat sport. You get to a place where you

know that you're losing and you don't want to get pinned or

embarrassed. So what do you do?

You hold on. But I think that there's

something important for us to understand here because he says

I will not let go unless you bless me.

And listen, I think there's a lesson for us because if you

want God to bless you, you need to be in proximity with him.

You need to be holding on tight. You need to be holding on close.

And many of us want God's blessing, but we want to be far

away. God bless my life, bro.

You're not even in the ring with him.

You don't, you don't even know him.

So if you want to receive, if you want to see what God can do,

you need to hold on. And I love what Jacob does here

because Jacob says, Lord, I ain't letting go until you bless

me. This is a sign of defeat, not a

sign of victory, because he's holding on.

It doesn't say that Jacob continued to wrestle.

He's given up. And what he understands, and

what I think we need to understand is that, listen, we

can't conquer much of anything unless you let the Lord conquer

your heart first. Many of us want to do big things

for God, many just want to follow him and a jump in his

calling. But there's some things in our

lives that you have not surrendered and you have not let

the Lord conquer first. Some of us, I know we don't like

that language and we talk about this a lot like man, I don't

like the word surrender. I don't like man as a man that

makes me feel a certain way. Listen, it's King Jesus, He is

worthy of those words. So you surrender to him, you bow

your knee to him, you, you submit to him.

Because when you do that, you win.

I love what happens here He goes.

I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me first.

Then I'll let you go. And listen, this wasn't Jacob

dictating terms with God as like God needed his permission.

When God overcame Jacob and Jacob was exhausted of wrestling

and he's tired, he finally realized, OK, God, I'm at my

wits end. I'm holding on for dear life.

Can you just, can you bless me now?

I'm ready. See, in the past, Jacob, he's

always sneaky and clever. He's always willing to do all

these things and listen. Surrender is not a bad place to

be. Which leads us to #2 what's the

second point of all this? Listen.

And struggling with God. The only way to win is by losing

and not giving up until you have lost.

What The only way? And when you're struggling

wrestling with God, the only way that you and I will win is by

losing. But also in losing, you don't

give up in the process of losing.

There's a difference between losing and quitting.

And sometimes we hear teams say this in football like, man, I

didn't. They didn't win.

I lost because I quit. And many of us quit before God

is able to do a work in US. I remember watching like and

many of us saw like the first Rocky.

You know what nobody talks about is when Rocky fought Apollo at

the end, Rocky lost everybody like the whole scene of the

movie Apollo 1. But Rocky lasted with Apollo.

And then everybody's rushing the the ring and they're cheering.

They're like, we can't believe. Listen, Apollo won the fight,

but Rocky won the battle because that changed his life forever.

And for some of us, when we surrender to God and when we let

God win, listen, God won the battle and he won the fight, but

he changed your life forever. Your life is forever changed,

but it's going to take us for God.

It's going to take us to win by letting God.

It's going to take, I'm sorry, it's going to take God for us to

lose and let God win. So that way we end up winning.

A little bit of a tongue twister there.

So how does God bless him? Says then the man said, your

name will no longer be Jacob but Israel because you have

struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.

I love this because God didn't allow Jacob to cover up his

name. God went right after Jacob

because Jacob's name reflected his true nature.

God didn't ask Jacob what your name was because God wanted to

know. I'm God, I made you.

God is like, what's your name? And instead of Jacob hiding and

instead of Jacob scheming and instead of Jacob like flipping

things around and and changing up the conversation, he comes to

God and he says, my name is Jacob.

And God says, no, I'm going to change your name.

Your name no longer is Jacob, but it's Israel because you've

struggled with God and with humans and you have overcome.

Listen, struggle is something that Jacob has always done.

If you look at his life, struggle is the dominating

characteristic of Jacob. In Genesis 25 through 27, he

struggles with Esau. Genesis 27 is with his dad

Isaac. Genesis chapter 29 through 31

Genesis 29 · chapter mention

it's with his father-in-law. Genesis chapter 30, it's with

Genesis 30 · chapter mention

his wives and now in verse 28 it's with God and God's like I'm

going to start changing your name is going to be changed now.

Now I love the word the the name Israel is so important.

The name Israel is Sarah. If we look at the Hebrew, Sarah

means fight, struggle, or rule, and then L means God.

So the name Israel really means he who struggles with God, he

who rules with God. However, in the Hebrew names,

the Hebrew language, God is not the verb, but he's the subject.

So really Israel means God rules not he who struggles, but God

who rules over his people and God.

But look at this, think about, I think about Jacob.

Jacob's name went from heel catcher and deceiver to God's

fighter and he who struggles with God.

How does God bless Jacob? God blesses him because he goes

from Jacob to Israel. He goes from a heel catcher to

one who struggles with God. He goes from a deceiver to the

people of God. He changes his name, but he also

changes his outlook in life. He changes his purpose in life

and he changes the directory of his life.

Jacob is actually going to be the birth place of the people of

God. Oh, and don't forget that Jacob

is going to have all these kids and one of those kids is going

to save Jacob's family because the seed of Christ is coming

from Israel. Jacob, there's a big situation.

There's a bigger meaning. This is bigger than

reconciliation with Esau. God has a massive plan here.

And then look what it says the next verse Jacob said, please

tell me your name and he replied, why do you ask me my

name? Then he blessed them there.

So Jacob called the place Pineal, saying it is because I

saw God face to face and yet my life was spared.

And then the sun rose above him as he placed Pineal, and he was

limping because of his hip. Excuse me #3 point #3 is that as

Jacob is walking, as Jacob is going through this, there's two

memorials that Jacob takes with him, his name and his hip.

So Jacob gets a name change. He doesn't just get Israel put

on him, but also Jacob changes the name of the place.

And the name of the place is called Peniel.

And for centuries and four years later, this place will always be

known where Jacob struggled with God and lived to tell about it.

And God shows up to Jacob and everything is great.

But how do you know that you've struggled with God?

There's a little bit of a limp in your step.

Now. Why does God give Jacob a limp

for the rest of his life? Because every step Jacob takes

is going to be a reminder of the day that God changed his life.

Many of us in this room walk with a little bit of a limp.

But limps and scars are the same things because they both tell a

story. And when people see you limping,

the first thing they ask is what what happened?

When people see your scars, the first thing they ask is what

happened. And for Jacob, the rest of his

life, whenever he's limping, he's going to tell the

generations of his kids and his grandkids of the day that he

went to Pineal and the day that he that God changed his life.

Which leads me to the last one, man.

What I love about this is that this shows God's mercy and

grace. And listen, because of God's

mercy and grace, you don't have to end up in a casket.

Your casket now becomes a classroom.

You don't have to walk in life dead.

You don't have to. This is not the end for you.

God wants to change your life. God wants to heal you and

restore you. And many of us were like ashamed

of our past, but God's like, hold on a second.

That thing that you're ashamed of, it's not going to bury you.

I'm going to use it to teach other people how not to do that.

Your greatest misery is going to become your greatest ministry.

That's the beauty of our God. And Jacob, for the rest of his,

he's going to walk with a limb. But for the rest of his life,

he's going to be able to tell the story of when he met God, to

tell about it and how God didn't just change his name, but he

changed his purpose and he changed his life and he changed

his family. You have a choice, casket or

classroom. Which one do you want?

God is wrestling with some of you guys in here.

He wants something from your life, and it's not because he's

angry with you. God is not angry with you.

God loves you and He gives grace and mercy and He wants to heal

you and He wants to use you for something so much greater.

He wants you to have a better life and He wants you to thrive

and He wants you to know Christ because in Christ is real peace

and joy and understanding. Genesis chapter 46.

Genesis 46 · chapter mention

Jacob is at the end of his life. The famine has come.

Joseph is now second in Egypt. God had a plan for Joseph to get

his family out of the danger of the famine so that way the seed

of Christ could come through the line of Jacob and Isaac.

Genesis 46. Check this out.

This is crazy. Genesis 46 verses 123 and four.

So Israel set out with all that he was his, and when he reached

for Sheba, he offered sacrifices to God of his father Isaac.

And God spoke to Israel, who's Jacob in a vision when at night.

Sound familiar? And he said, Jacob, Jacob, here

I am. This time God does not tackle

him. This time God reassures him that

I'm with you, Jacob, here I am. Listen, I am God, the God of

your father. He said do not be afraid to go

down to Egypt for I will make you a great nation there.

And the great nation is not a people thing, is not a property

thing, is not a wealth thing. It's a Jesus thing because the

line of Christ is coming through Jacob.

He's the great nation. He's the one that we're looking

for. And then verse 4 and I will go

down to Egypt with you and I will surely bring you back when

again and Joseph's own. And then it says in Joseph's own

hand. We'll close your eyes, man.

Many of us need to hear this. You've wrestled with God, you

have fallen, you're in your sinful nature and you're seeking

things from the Lord, not because of him, but because you

want your own stuff. And God's like, I have a better

purpose for you and I can't, I can't let that happen.

So I'm going to wrestle these things out of your life.

And listen, for some of you, it's going to mean you hitting

rock bottom. It's going to be him, you

removing everything from your life, you losing it all.

And listen, that's God's grace and love for you.

But like God tells Jacob, I'm going to bring you back.

I'm going to bring you back. And listen, I'm not just going

to bring you back, but I'm going to bless you.

The blessing I have for your life is so great.

It's not because of the seed of Christ, but I'm going to bring

you back. And your own son, the one that

you thought you lost, is going to bury you.

You're going to be able to see your family grow and thrive and

strive. And you're going to be

surrounded by the ones you love. It's going to be such an

incredible end to your life. And listen, none of this

happened unless he wrestled with God and he let God win and he

stood up and walked himself out of a limp.

And listen, God is going to bring you back.

Some of you guys are like, man, I have suffered too much, man,

I've done too many bad things. God is going to bring you back.

God is going to bring you back. Let him surrender your life to

Him and let the Lord redeem you. Let God bring you back because

He has something so much greater.

You just have no idea yet, but He's going to bring it back to

you.