One Extraordinary Event Genesis 32:22-32

Life is full of highs and lows and seasons in between. When you understand that life is a story, it is fascinating to look at our lives. It is a story being written by God as Psalm 139 tells us. Verse 16, Your eyes saw My unformed substance.

In Your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for Me when as yet there was none of them. As we look at our lives, we might not think it is a story since most of life feels mundane.

It feels ordinary. It's true that over 90 of our lives are not going to excite anyone. But for all who belong to the Lord, there are highlights. The greatest highlight is when you come to know the Lord.

And this leads to another highlight when you take your last breath and enter God's glory. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4 .13, to live is Christ and to die is gain. As you enter His presence, you will have completely triumphed as you enjoy Him forever and all your troubles will forever be behind you.

And we can rejoice today that that's Bruce, right? His troubles are forever behind him. But before this glorious day arrives, as you go through the journey of the life of faith, you will have many ordinary days.

Yet there will be highlights. There will be those moments that if one were to write a biography of your life, they would focus on those events. I enjoy watching biographies on presidents, the presidents of the United States.

In 10 minutes, historians give a snapshot of a one or two-term presidency. So four to eight years, a period that spans thousands of days, can be summed up in 10 minutes. This is how life is. Life is full of mostly mundane moments, but some extraordinary.

What we must understand is that every moment in life is very important. We will be judged for how we lived every day. Your faithfulness matters every bit as much on the ordinary days as the spectacular.

Rob has been sending out verses every day to some of the men in this church, and one of the verses that came up this week was Luke 16 .10. One who is faithful in the very little is also faithful in much.

But it is true that some days stand out more than others. As we have looked at Jacob's life over the past couple of months, we have seen significant moments highlighted. The most significant up to this point was Jacob's ladder.

That's where the angels were ascending and descending from heaven. Now today, we are going to see another one of those highlights. Jacob is going to have an encounter with God that may surpass the experience he had at Jacob's ladder.

So as we continue our sermon series in Genesis this morning, we are going to be looking at Genesis 32 verses 22 -32. As always, I encourage you to turn with me there. And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on pages 32 and 33.

Wrestling with the Lord as a Christian Duty

This sermon is titled, One Extraordinary Event. One Extraordinary Event. And our big idea, our proposition, is wrestling with the Lord is something that every Christian must do. Wrestling with the Lord is something that every Christian must do.

And as I say this, let me say right from the outset that there is an unhealthy wrestling we can do. And I'm not endorsing that at all. And that is if we question God's goodness, that's never a good thing.

We should never do that. But there is a wrestling that I'm going to show you in this sermon today that we need to do in order to faithfully live the life of faith. So I have one reason why wrestling with the Lord is something that every Christian must do.

This is the only sermon I've ever preached where I had one point. So it feels special today. So the reason why is the Lord uses our striving to bring us to surrender. The Lord uses our striving to bring us to surrender.

We'll see this in verses 22 -32. Last week, we looked at the anticipation of danger on the way for Jacob. Jacob was traveling from the north to return to the land of Canaan after his captivity to Laban.

Jacob and everyone who was with him camped out in the region northeast of the Dead Sea on the north side of what was known as the Jabbok River. As he was approaching the land of promise, he knew that his brother Esau lived in this region.

Twenty years earlier, Esau plotted to kill him because Jacob cheated him for his birthright and his blessing. So Jacob sent his servants ahead of him with gifts in order to satisfy Esau's anger and to make peace between the two parties.

So the servants headed south to meet Esau. And as they returned, they told Jacob that Esau was on his way with 400 men. Jacob thinks the worst that his brother is going to do here is to destroy everything.

And so what he does in order to try to minimize the damage is he splits his people up into two camps. So Esau will go to one camp and destroy that, but the other camp will be spared. So he wisely takes action in order to protect himself and his people.

But then Jacob does something even more important. He prays for God's help. He reminds the Lord of his promise that he would bring him safely to the land of promise. The Lord's been telling him that right from the get-go.

I'm going to bring you to the land. And the application for us is to follow Jacob's example in praying God's promises back to him. These are the prayers the Lord loves to answer. That's why we need to know the Bible because we can pray the Bible back to God and say, Lord, You promised to do this and now I'm praying that You would do this.

We also saw Jacob's example in treating his brother Esau with great respect, one who was hostile to him. And the application for us with that is that we should show respect to all people, even those who are hostile to us.

This is how the Lord desires for us to interact with our fellow humans created in the image of God. So this leads us to our text today. As Jacob prepares to meet Esau, he is about to have an experience that is truly the most remarkable moment of his life, or at least one of the most remarkable moments of his life.

So let's begin by reading verses 22 and 23 that will set the stage. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. So geographically, this is 24 miles northeast of the Dead Sea. We saw last week that Jacob, his family, and everyone with him settled north of this river, the Jabbok River.

And you will notice that Jacob sends them across the river. As we look at this, it looks like an act of cowardice by staying back out of his fear for Esau. He sends everyone ahead of him, but he stays back.

However, we probably shouldn't jump to that conclusion. He may want alone time before he meets Esau. This is a huge moment, and he's wondering what's going to happen with his future. But either way, he sends everyone and everything that he has across the river south towards Esau.

And as he is left alone, an incredible event happens. Verse 24, And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. What we know from verse 24 is that he sends everyone away across the river as night is approaching.

This encounter with this extraordinary man happens at night. Sometimes at night when you can't sleep, it can feel like you're wrestling as you toss and turn in bed. But here, Jacob is literally wrestling with a man after the sun has gone down.

And you might wonder, why does the heading of this section in the ESV say Jacob wrestles with God? God is not a man. Yet this text says that God wrestled with a man. This is where we have to remember what we have seen throughout Genesis.

God has the ability to take on human form. He did this regularly in the Old Testament. Now, this is different from the incarnation which we celebrated at Christmas where the second person of the Trinity took on flesh, Jesus Christ.

And He will always have a body. He's always going to be fully God and fully man. Yet what we see here is what's known as a theophany. When these happened in the Old Testament, the Lord would take on human form temporarily.

God in the Old Testament appeared as the angel of the Lord. The key word there is the. And He would send angels in other places. Those were known as an angel of the Lord as He sent them to do His will.

And you may remember back to the account in Genesis 18 where three men appeared to Abraham outside his tent. Abraham had his wife Sarah prepare a meal for these visitors in order to show hospitality to them.

And one of the three men is referred to as the angel of the Lord. So there was two ordinary angels and then God who had human form. So Jacob is wrestling God who has taken on a body. And what v. 24 tells us is that Jacob wrestled with this mysterious man until the breaking of the day, indicating that he had a wrestling match with Him all night.

And what v. 25 tells us is that this was a fierce battle. V. 25, 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.

So what we see here is that this was a seesaw match back and forth. The beginning of v. 25 says that the man did not prevail against Jacob. However, he succeeded in causing his hip socket to be placed out of joint.

Now that sounds painful. Only one man is leaving this fight with an injury, and it's Jacob. Now before my time on earth, I know that boxing was one of the most popular sports not only in the country, but also in the world.

Over the last 30 years or so, it's really turned into a minor sport with occasional big matches. However, in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and maybe even the 80s, boxing was a big deal. Some of you may remember some of the greats.

Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Joe Lewis, and George Foreman. I knew George Foreman for his grill. And then I realized, wait, he's a boxer. His lean, mean, fat, reducing grilling machine. Now in these boxing matches, they would go round after round until one knocked the other out.

And if they went 12 rounds without a knockout, the judges would decide who was the winner. And in some cases, it would be a draw. Now this match between God and Jacob is not a knockout. Verse 25 says that the man did not prevail against Jacob.

But to say that this is a split decision is not accurate. And I'll explain that here in a little bit. As they wrestled, this is what the man said to Jacob in verse 26. Then he said, let me go, for the day has broken.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Those are powerful words from Jacob. So now that the night is over, the wrestling match is supposed to be over. The 12 rounds have passed, if you will.

And what you will notice is that the man desires to leave as the light starts to rise over the horizon in the east. In other words, the mysterious man says that the wrestling match needs to end. Why is it that he desires to leave?

We don't know for sure, but it's likely that he desired to conceal his identity from Jacob. God often does this. He reveals a little bit of himself, but not his full glory. This has to do with the fact that as finite fallen creatures, which we are, when I say finite, that means that we have great limitations.

And it doesn't take long to live in this life to realize how limited we are, especially when you think about the fact that God is unlimited. When we say God's infinite, that's what we're saying. He has no limits to His being.

And we have enormous limits. And as fallen creatures, we can only handle so much of His greatness. But what's amazing about Scripture is that God has gradually revealed more of Himself as Scripture was progressively produced throughout history.

And we are most of all blessed to have the full revelation. Think about it. Abraham didn't have a Bible. Jacob didn't have a Bible. We do. We know so much more about... I'm hesitant to say this because he actually had this encounter with God, but in some ways, we know more about God than he does because the Bible has told us about the Lord.

So at this point, the Lord only desired to reveal so much of Himself. And the breaking of the day meant this was time for Him to leave. That's what I think is happening here. The Lord also wanted to get to the point of this encounter.

He did not just wrestle Him to wrestle Him. That's what I do with my daughter Leah. But rather, He wrestled Jacob in order to bring about more change in this flawed man. Now in one sense, the purpose of this wrestling match was that God wanted to build confidence in Jacob.

We have to understand the context here. What's about to happen? Esau is coming toward Him with 400 men. And so the Lord is using this experience to do something. And that's why in verse 29, as we will see, this mysterious man, the Lord, tells Jacob that He prevailed over him.

In other words, He is a conqueror because God conquers through Him. God shows Jacob His strength and His success as long as the Lord is with Him. So it's almost as if the man here throws the match a little bit in order to produce this confidence in Jacob.

Now the angel forcing the match to end prompted Jacob to ask a question that the Lord loved hearing. He tells the mysterious man, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Have you ever prayed like that?

I will not let you go unless you bless me. I will not let, you know, Lord, I'm claiming one of your promises and I'm going to beg that you are going to deliver on this. And plead with him to do that. Now he knows that the one with whom he is wrestling is stronger than he is.

You only ask a blessing from the one who is superior. This is an understatement. God is infinitely stronger than His creatures. And you can tell that Jacob realizes this is more than a mere man. I've already explained that this is God in human form.

Yet Jacob's request for a blessing is the first indication we get from the text that Jacob realizes that this is God. Only God is able to bless others and Jacob asks for a blessing. But what specific blessing does Jacob ask for?

Jacob knows that he needs the Lord's strength as his vengeful brother Esau approaches. So the blessing he requests is probably strength for what is to come in the near future. Jacob desires to survive the Esau encounter so that he and his people would enjoy the Abrahamic blessing of the Lord preserving their offspring and giving them the land of Canaan.

That's been the big theme throughout Genesis. The Lord makes this promise and the Lord is acting. He's going to deliver on this promise. Jacob is concerned these great promises from the Lord may be in jeopardy if Esau comes and destroys him and everything he has.

This is what led him to pray in last week's text. And this leads him to demand the Lord that he would bless him. Now let's look at what the response is from this mysterious man who is the Lord in verse 27.

And he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. So the Lord asked Jacob, what's his name? Now we know that God knows everything. This is God's attribute of omniscience. We learned this about God's nature in the summer of 2017, which some of you weren't here then.

And what we saw is that God knows every detail. We as humans learn, God never learns. Wouldn't that be nice to be in that position? So he's not asking Jacob to learn his name like you or I would, rather he's going or he's doing this for a purpose.

Now let's see what that purpose is. Verse 28, then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. So the Lord asked Jacob his name since he desired to rename him.

And this is where we have to remember the meaning of Jacob's name. Back in chapter 25, we learned that Jacob's name meant deceiver or cheater. That's not a good connotation to have connected to your name.

We saw Jacob most notably deceive his brother Esau by deceiving him for his birthright and the blessing. The Lord does not want Jacob to continue with this name alone. He needs a new one. And so the Lord names him Israel.

What this means in Hebrew is he strives with God or God strives. There's been a debate about which one it is. But when this verse says that Jacob has prevailed against God and men, the Lord is reminding Jacob of the source of his strength.

God has enabled Jacob to be victorious over Esau and Laban. And now Jacob is victorious, but he has shown his need to surrender. We see in this episode that Jacob is surrendering to God here, but not quite fully, not yet.

Up to this point, I've made the argument that Jacob already knew the Lord. We have seen good character qualities come out of Jacob for a while now that can only be described as one who is born again. There's a lot of debate about when was the conversion point for Jacob.

I think it's already happened. However, at this point, it appears he's approaching a more full point of surrender. And we do that as we walk with the Lord. We take steps with him as we go through our journey with him.

And like everyone following the Lord, there's much growing to do. And this was a time when Jacob was taking this step. And as he reaches this point of surrender, he asked the Lord his name in verse 29.

Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So you notice there, the Lord does not give him his name. The Lord asked Jacob for his name.

Jacob gives it up. And then Jacob asked the Lord his name. And he says, nope, I'm not gonna give it to you. Why is this? Here's a wonderful quote from theologian R .C. Sproul commenting on why the Lord would not give him his name.

He said, when Jacob surrendered his name, he surrendered his soul. He relinquished authority over his own life. With a surrender came a new name, a new identity, Israel. In defeat, Jacob was still hoping for a draw, a tie that would leave his pride intact.

Even a split decision would help. Jacob politely requested the angel's name and did not get it. This was the final act of divine conquest. There are no draws with God, no split decisions. When we wrestle with the Almighty, we lose.

He is the undefeated champion of the universe. Amen. Now Jacob is wrestling with God. And the Lord brings him to a point where he forces him to surrender. The Lord has changed Jacob little by little and day by day over the years.

He went from a prideful deceiver to one who was humbled. He now knows who is in charge and it's not him. The Lord is the ruler of his life. And it is crystal clear from this day forward from whom he will draw his strength.

And as we look at this narrative, we should be encouraged by the fact that Jacob was wrestling figuratively and literally with the Lord. Now we don't wrestle literally with him, but we do wrestle figuratively.

This is how the life of faith is. We desire to go one way, but the Lord desires for us to go the other way. We think we rule our life out of our pride. But when you realize who God is, He's the creator of all things.

And He's the ruler of all our lives. It changes how you live. God uses our wrestling with our selfish desires to make us holy. And to piggyback on what I just read from R .C. Sproul, he also said this.

He wrote, the Holy One cannot be defeated in personal combat, but there is some comfort here. Jacob wrestled with God and lived. He was beaten. He was left crippled, but he survived that battle. At least we can learn from this that God will engage us in our honest struggles.

We may wrestle with the Holy One. Indeed, for the transforming power of God to change our lives, we must wrestle with Him. We must know what it means to fight with God all night if we are also to know what it means to experience the sweetness of the soul's surrender.

End quote. Do you realize that life is a war between God and us? We don't always see it that way. And when we come into this world, we are sinners in need of being made right with a holy God. And God, out of His great love for us, sent Jesus to die for our sins that we might be reconciled to Him.

And once you sincerely believe in Christ, the great war between you and God is over. However, the battle continues. I've used this illustration before, but when you come to Christ, the war is over, but the battle continues.

And the battle continues between your sinful flesh and God. The devil continues to wage battle against you. The world is still there, right? So the fight continues. But this is a fight that we need to win little by little over time.

Because we still want our own way. We still sin. And the Lord desires for us to humbly follow Him. And our pride gets in the way. And we are all proud people, and we're often blind to it. And that's what keeps us sinning.

We want our own way. In some way, pride is really involved in probably every sin we commit. But we must be those who humbly surrender to the Lord daily. I heard one pastor say that I am a proud person pursuing humility, which is well said.

There's two types of people in the world. There's proud people, and there's proud people pursuing humility. So the question I have for you is, are you wrestling with God? Or are you seeking your own way all the time, refusing to surrender to Him?

Are you seeking God so that He would have authority over your life? I often mention that when we are following the Lord, we are living life upstream. Holiness takes work. Holiness takes fighting. This is so because our natural inclination is to refuse to surrender to the Lord each day.

And how easily we are willing to serve our own sinful desires. There is a holy wrestling with the Lord that must take place for any of us to grow, to become more like Him. And this is the mission of our church, to grow in Christ together.

One of the big reasons we meet weekly and during the weeks is to learn to put to death our sin. And to surrender our lives more fully to Him. We must encourage one another in this endeavor. So what sins do you need to give over to the Lord that you are pridefully holding onto?

What sins do I need to give over to the Lord? I've been examining myself this week too, as I've been preaching this, or preparing to preach this. Now this encounter for Jacob was so significant that he has to name this location.

We've seen Abraham and Jacob name places before in Genesis. And we see it here in verse 30. So Jacob called the name of the place Penuel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

So Jacob calls the place Penuel. And what this means is the face of God. Since he had just engaged in a wrestling match with the Lord. Now earlier, I alluded to Exodus 33, verse 20, where the Lord told Moses that no one can see the face of God and live.

So the question I have here, is this what Jacob is referring to when he says that he has seen the face of God? Because clearly he's lived. And the answer to that is no. This is referring to intimacy with God.

He's in close proximity with Him. He wrestled with Him and the Lord blessed Him. In Exodus 33, verse 11, the author Moses said that the Lord spoke to him face to face as a man speaks to his friend. So what this text refers to is what that text refers to.

Namely, Jacob encountered God in an intimate way and he's amazed that he survived it. He's talking about this close encounter with the Lord and the joy of having this friendship with Him. However, when Exodus chapter 33, verse 20 mentions that a man cannot see God and live, it's referring to one seeing God in all of His glory.

We as frail mortal beings cannot see the greatness of God and live. Not in this life. But in the future when we enter the presence of God, once this life is over, we will be able to see God in His glory because we will have an indestructible body and we will be sinless.

1 Corinthians 13, 12 says, for now we see in a mere dimly, but then face to face. And that's talking about our future presence with the Lord as we enter His presence. And you might be wondering, what is the glory of God?

What that is talking about, sometimes when Scripture talks about the glory of God, what it's referring to is this bright light that's brighter than the sun. It's what the Apostle Paul experienced when he was on the road to Damascus.

The light was so bright that he was blinded. He couldn't see for a few days. And we see in other places too where someone encounters God and it's such a bright light that they fall to their knees. They're blinded.

They're speechless. And the Lord told Moses, you can't see all of me, but you can see some of me. And so I think the Lord just showed him a little bit of His glory in that moment. And so it's a fascinating thing to look at because this is our future in Christ.

We are going to be in the presence of God. And what will that be like? It'll be truly, truly wonderful. So the fact that Jacob, as we've seen here, he survived this wrestling with the Lord and he has experienced the Lord's favor.

This gives him confidence that he's ready to meet Esau. And more importantly, the Lord did something in Jacob spiritually. He surrendered himself more here than he ever had before. And he is given a new name.

He's given the name Israel. And the confidence that he's given here is that the Lord is going to fight for him. The Lord is going to make sure that his path is secure. So this is how this narrative ends in verses 31 and 32.

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

The Lord Uses Striving to Bring Surrender

So, what this sermon is calling you to do is to wrestle with the Lord. Wrestling with the Lord is something that every Christian must do. And we've seen the reason why. The Lord uses our striving to bring us to surrender.

We saw it happen here with Jacob and the Lord's plan is the same for every one of us. That we would give up our selfish, sinful desires, our pride, and submit to Him in our lives. And as we wrap up this, as we've taken a close look at Jacob's struggle with the Lord, when we fight in the future, may we be reminded of this.

The journey through the life of faith is a difficult one. But let me remind you. I always want to remind us that it's a joyful one. This is the best path possible. This is the only path of joy. Acts 14 .22 says, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

No one ever said it was going to be easy. I remember when I was in high school, that was one of the quotes in cross country. No one ever said it was going to be easy. And that's true about the life of faith.

Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. The Bible tells us that. But Jesus also tells us in John 15 .11 that His joy is with us as we go through this journey with Him. And this is a fight from the inside.

It's a spiritual fight. As I reflect on my own walk with the Lord, I'm thinking, my biggest struggles are things that people can't even see. It's just inward struggles that I face. Because I'm fighting my own sin.

And I'm fighting the devil. And I'm fighting the world. And so are you. And we must understand this, that this is an inward fight that we're fighting. And our biggest enemy is not Satan. And it's not the world.

Our biggest enemy is ourselves. And until you realize that, life is going to be perplexing. But when you realize that, it's like an aha moment. Because that's what Scripture teaches us. And we can turn and become more like Christ.

And the Spirit gains victory in our lives little by little and day by day. So may we be thankful this morning to the Lord that He gave us this story. Jacob wrestling with Him so that we would be equipped to fight the fight of faith before us.

And the amazing thing is, that as He leads us to wrestle with Him, He fights this battle with us. And He does it for our good so that we would reflect Him. Now next week, we will see Jacob meet Esau. And we're going to see something remarkable happen.

We're going to see the Lord work this frightening situation for Jacob's good. So let's pray. Father in Heaven, I rest in the promise of Isaiah 55 that says that Your Word... It might be Isaiah 66. I'm not sure what it is.

But it says that Your Word does not come back void, but accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent out. And I take great comfort in that. And I pray that that would happen in our midst. That this passage, Genesis 32, verses 22 -32, that it would speak to people in this room right where they're at.

And that we would give up our fight, Lord, over our own sins. And I realize, Lord, this is going to be a struggle that we're going to deal with the rest of our lives. We never get to a point where we're completely... to the point where we don't fight anymore.

But I pray that we would fight our own sinful flesh. And that we would give the authority over our life day by day, more and more, over to You. Realizing, Lord, that You are the Lord of our life. In Jesus' name, Amen.