Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Professional wrestling is a big sport today.  Got any wrestling fans here today?  You ever heard of WrestleMania?  I got a “whoo” over here.  I’m not sure about the rest of us.  But I did a little research this week, and I learned that the first WrestleMania took place on March of 1985.  And do you know who was there on the first WrestleMania? Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.  That’ll take you back, won’t it?  This is kind of a flashback to the past.  And professional wrestling just kind of got off to this big start.  I love the characters and the personas that they take on.  You’ve got Hulk Hogan.  You’ve got Mr. T.  There was a guy for awhile named Andre the Giant.  What a giant of a man he was.  But you fast forward to today, and the characters are even more intimidating like the guy who calls himself the Undertaker.  Now, I wouldn’t want to wrestle the guy who sees himself as the Undertaker.  It wouldn’t go very well for me.  It wouldn’t end very well that day.  But there was WrestleMania at Madison Square Gardens, 1985.  But it wasn’t the first WrestleMania.

0:01:33.8

Actually the first WrestleMania took place at the River Jabbok about, let’s say, 4,000 years ago.  And if you and I were there at the Jabbok River 4,000 years ago, we might hear an announcer say something like this- “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the River Jabbok.  Welcome to the first WrestleMania.  We have quite a show for you today.  We have two formidable opponents.  Over here in this corner is Jacob the Cheater.  He’s the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham.  And over here, God.” I don’t know.  It might go something like that.  Maybe the announcer would do a better job than I would do, but you get the idea.  Almost 4,000 years ago Jacob—yeah, the Jacob of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—wrestled with God all night long.  And what a wrestling match it was.

0:02:39.8

That brings us to Genesis 32, which is the text I read just a moment ago.  But before we dive into it further, let me ask you this.  Have you ever wrestled with God?  Have you ever wrestled with God?  Some people wrestle with God over matters of salvation.  You’ve heard the gospel every which way you can.  You saw the gospel pictured in baptism- the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You’ve heard over and over again that Christ died for your sins, He was buried, He rose again on the third day.  You’ve heard Jesus say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me.”  You’ve heard John 3:16 that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.”  You’ve heard the gospel.  You’ve heard the…but you’re still wrestling with God.  You’re still wrestling to say yes to Jesus Christ.  And there is a cosmic battle going on for your soul.

0:03:42.6

Others of us are followers of Jesus Christ.  We call ourselves Christians.  We can think of that day when we came to faith in Jesus Christ.  But maybe there is some area of your life where you’re still wrestling with God to give over to Him the full lordship of Jesus Christ.  I don’t know what area of your life that might be.  Maybe you have an area of your life that is not rightly related to God.  Maybe, like we’ll discover with Jacob, you have a deep character flaw.   And God wants to redeem that.  He wants to shape and mold that part of your life, and there is a wrestling match with God about that.  You’re wrestling with Him over whether it’s His will or your will.

0:04:25.7

Have you ever wrestled with God?  Are you here this morning…maybe you didn’t realize you were walking into WrestleMania.  And you’ve been wrestling with something between you and God.  I’m going to leave that between you and the Lord, but let’s go back to the text this morning and find out how Jacob got to where he is.

0:04:44.5

By the way, Frederick Buechner said that Jacob’s divine encounter at the Jabbok River he described, he characterized as “the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.”  That’s a great description of this first WrestleMania at the Jabbok River nearly 4,000 years ago, this cosmic battle between God and Jacob.

0:05:12.8

Now, in keeping with our series, Jacob was a cracked pot.  He was a cracked pot because he had a character flaw like a lot of us and like others in the Bible.  Jacob was a cheater.  He was a trickster, a liar, a manipulator.  That’s kind of how he worked his way through life.  Jacob didn’t start very well.  He didn’t live very well, but he ended well.  How do we know he ended well?  Because, believe it or not, Jacob the cheater ends up in the Hebrews hall of faith in Hebrews 11.

0:05:47.8 

Let’s hold our place here in Genesis.  Go with me to Hebrews 11:21. And here is what the writer of Hebrews says as a summation of Jacob’s life.  He says, “By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.”  It goes all the way the end of Jacob’s life and to that scene where he is finally reunited with his sons.  And he is blessing each one of them.  Jacob ended well, but Jacob didn’t start well.  In fact, his name was an indication of the kind of cheater that he was.  The name Jacob literally means “deceiver.”  Sorry for any of you who are named Jacob today.  No character flaw intended there.  But back then names meant something.  Jacob means deceiver.  It also means “heel-catcher” or “heel-grabber.”

0:06:45.2 

You remember the story.  Back in Genesis you have Abraham and Sarah who finally gave birth to the promised child, Isaac.  And then Isaac laid eyes on Rebecca, beautiful Rebecca.  The Bible calls her “beautiful in form and in eyes.”  She’s a beautiful, beautiful woman.  And Isaac married Rebecca.  They tried to have children.  They were 40 years old when they got together.  Not until they were 60 years old did Rebecca finally get pregnant and gave birth to twins.  Don’t scoot past those 20 years too fast, all right.  Twenty years they waited for a child.  And finally Rebecca gave birth to two boys- Esau and Jacob, twins.  Esau came out first.  He was the firstborn, and with that came all the blessings and the birthrights of the firstborn.  Jacob came second, but the Bible tells us that Jacob, as he was coming out of the womb, was grabbing onto Esau’s heel.  He’s the heel-catcher.  He’s the heel-grabber.  And he became a deceiver and a trickster and a liar and a manipulator.  And all that his heel-grabbing…You know, reaching for those things that didn’t belong to him and tricking people and manipulating people out of things that were rightfully theirs but that he wanted.

0:08:16.3 

That was Jacob.  Jacob the cheater, the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham, and one of the three major patriarchs of the Old Testament.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.  We put them on a shelf up here, don’t we?  We put them in those high categories.  These are heroes of the faith.  No, he’s just a cracked pot.  He had flaws just like every one of us, but God chose him.  All the covenant promises that first came to Abraham in Genesis 12 and that went to Isaac, the promised child, through Jacob, Jacob’s sons, eventually King David, the lion of David, all the way to Messiah.  Jesus Christ has in His genealogy a trickster and a cheat named Jacob.  If you have any doubts that God can use you, a cracked pot like you are, just take some encouragement that He used Jacob the cheater.

0:09:20.9

Now, let’s just review really quickly some of Jacob’s cheating ways.  I made a list there in your notes, and I’ve alluded to some of it already.  It started with Jacob taking advantage of his brother Esau and tricking him out of his birthright.  Remember, Esau came back from a hunting trip.  And Esau was famished.  He was tired.  And Jacob was anticipating this.  And he and his mama got together, and they cooked up a pot of porridge.  Esau comes back, and he’s just, “I’m just…I’m dying.  Give me some of that porridge.”  And Jacob says, “Great.  Give me your birthright, and I’ll give you something to eat.”  And Esau traded his birthright for a pot of porridge.  He traded his blessing and his birthright to satisfy his flesh.  Don’t miss that.

0:10:06.7

Next, a little bit later with the birthright in hand, now Jacob had to trick his own father Isaac, who is not aging and losing some of his eyesight.  Oh, he could still smell his son Esau, who was a man of the fields and the game and all of that.  But Jacob got together with his mother, and they tricked Isaac into giving the blessing, the blessing that belonged to the firstborn.  Jacob received that from Isaac.

0:10:40.0

And then a little bit later Jacob goes off and meets his wife Rachel.  And he sets his eyes on Rachel, and she is beautiful.  And he wants Rachel to be his wife.  And Rachel’s father, Laban, who was…I’m getting this all mixed up here, but somebody’s uncle in the line here.  And Jacob wants Rachel.  He says, “I’ll work for you, Laban, for seven years, and you give me your daughter Rachel.”  Seven years came, and now what goes around comes around.  You ever heard that?  Now Laban tricks Jacob and slides in Leah, the eldest daughter.  She’s kind of the ugly duckling of the family.  Jacob didn’t even look at Leah.  But Laban wasn’t about to have Rachel get married before Leah.  And so Jacob the trickster has a trick turned on him.  He’s livid after this, and he does another deal with Laban.  “I’ll work now for another seven years for Rachel.”  But now 14 years into this he’s feeling turned on by his father-in-law Laban.  And the final way that Jacob is a trickster—we’re up to Genesis 31 now—is he does a little trick with Laban and his flocks.  And by the time Jacob decides to leave his father-in-law’s business and his home…also during that time Laban had tricked Jacob out of his wages.  One time, Jacob says to his wife, “Your dad cheated me out of my wages.  Changed my wages ten times.”  Well, Jacob, what goes around comes around.  And then he gets his father-in-law back one more time and tricks him out of some of his flocks.  And Jacob leaves his father-in-law a wealthy, wealthy man.

0:12:35.5

That brings us up to Genesis 31, Genesis 32.  And Jacob’s trickster ways now are starting to catch up with him.  He’s Laban, his father-in-law, behind him just as mad as a hornet, being tricked out of his flocks and all of that.  And then as Jacob is traveling this direction, he learns that his brother Esau, whom he hasn’t seen in years, but the last time they were together it wasn’t good.  But Esau is in front of him coming toward him.  And it’s all coming to roost.  The chickens are coming to roost on old Jacob.  And he’s caught in the middle here, and he is stressed.

0:13:18.3 

And that brings us to Genesis 32.  At the front end, Jacob tried to appease his brother Esau, and he sends his family and all of his flocks and possessions in a series of caravans, gifts to his brother Esau, just to appease him and hope that he might come in peace because he doesn’t know what kind of mood Esau is in.  And he divests himself of all of his family.  He sends them across the River Jabbok and over with all of his possessions, all of his flocks, all of his family.  And Jacob is left all alone on this side of the river.  And he camps out there for a night.  That’s the night he wrestles with God.  And what a wrestling match it is.

0:14:07.7

Have you ever wrestled with God?  And if you did, what would it look like?  What would that experience be like?  Let’s learn from Jacob.  I read his story, and I say if I’m ever in a wrestling match with God, I’ll probably be empty and alone before God.  God gets us in a place where we’re empty and we’re all alone with him.  Look at it in verse 22 again of Genesis 32.  “The same night Jacob arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.  And Jacob was left alone.”  Away from his family, away from his possessions.  He’s on one side of the river, and he is all by himself.

0:15:06.6

You know, the times that I’ve wrestled with the Lord over things, it’s been those times when I have felt all alone.  Like there is nobody else who can make this decision.  All of the props that I have in my life with my family or ministry colleagues, you know, they’re gone or they’re away.  And you’re just kind of left alone before God.  Some people call this the dark night of the soul.  Have you ever experienced one of those dark nights of the soul where the Lord has just kind of cornered you in?  You feel empty.  You feel all alone before Him.  And there you are in the middle of the night.  Jacob wasn’t sleepless in Seattle.  No, he was sleepless at the River Jabbok.  And that dark night of the soul, that phrase comes from the title of a poem written in the 16^th century by Saint John of the Cross.  The treatise describes a soul’s journey from birth to his eternal union with God.  The journey happens at night as a metaphor of those dark times we all experience.

0:16:20.4

And, yes, sometimes even the most dedicated, faithful followers of Jesus experience those dark nights of the soul where you just feel all alone. As much as you try to get connected with community in the body of Christ, it’s still…It’s that time when you feel all alone and you wrestle with God.  That’s where Jacob was.

0:16:43.2 

So not only expect to be empty and alone, but secondly, when you’re wrestling with God, anticipate a struggle and pain.  Let’s read on here.  Verse 24, “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.”  By the way, the man who wrestled with Jacob as you go further in the story, most Bible teachers and scholars see this as a pre-Bethlehem, preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.  But this man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.  All night long through the dark of the night they’re in this cosmic wrestling match together.  And Jacob wouldn’t let go.  Jacob was a formidable opponent.  And the man didn’t prevail.  So what did He do?  He injured him.  Touched the socket of his hip, dislocated his socket.  Kind of reminds me of Mike Tyson, who bit that one guy’s ear off.  You know, if you can’t win, just injure him some way.  And this is what happens here.

0:18:02.5

You know, sometimes God has to wound us, doesn’t He?  You say, “Pastor, you’ve got to be kidding me.  Why would God ever do something like that?”  It was A.W. Tozer who said, “I could hardly imagine God using a person greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”  And that happens on occasion.  I’m getting ahead of the story, but the rest of Jacob’s life, he’s going to walk with a hitch in his get-along.  He’s wounded.  He’s wounded.

0:18:31.5

You might be a cracked pot here this morning because there is some deep, deep wound in your life.  God wants to heal that.  He wants to touch it.  He doesn’t want you to forget it, because out of our woundedness, out of our brokenness, out of our hurt His glory shines and His power shines and flows through us, doesn’t it?  But when we wrestle with God, when He is (0:19:00.1) sanctifying us in a deeper, deeper kind of way, sometimes He has to touch an area of our life, maybe take away something that has become too precious to us, that has replaced our devotion to Him and Him alone.  Some wound in our life.  He will use that wound.  Sometimes it’s a wound that others have inflicted upon us.  Sometimes it’s God touching us even ever so gently in a place that leaves a reminder there and a wound.  Jacob would never forget this night.  Every time he took a step with a little hitch, he was reminded of the time he wrestled with God.

0:19:41.9

Let’s move on a little bit.  Third things that happens when you wrestle with God, you’ve got to come to that point where you surrender, but for a blessing.  Look at it in verse 26.  “Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I (0:20:00.1) will not let you go unless you bless me.’”  You know, the problem is too many of us give up too soon.  We are clinging to God.  We’re wrestling with Him.  We’ve got Him…we think we’re there.  Jacob wouldn’t let go, even though the sun began to creep up over the horizon and the man said, “Okay, Jacob, this match is over with.”  Ding ding, all right.  He said, “No, I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  I have to smile here a little bit because Jacob is still making deals, isn’t he?  The trickster is coming out, the dealmaker, the manipulator.  “I’ll make a deal with you here.”  But it was a moment of surrender for Jacob.

0:20:50.5

And here is the irony in the Christian life.  When you surrender, when you surrender that area of your life that you’re wrestling with over God, when you’re willing to say, “Not my will, but Yours be done,” when you surrender, you win.  That’s the irony of the Christian life.  Victory comes and blessing comes in the Christian life through surrender.  And that’s why we sing, “I surrender all.  All to Jesus I surrender.  All to Him I freely give.  I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.  All to Jesus I surrender.  Humbly at His feet I bow.  Worldly pleasures all forsaken.  Take me, Jesus, take me now.”  Where is that point in your life where you say, “I surrender”?  You may think it’s a moment of defeat.  The world may think it’s a moment of defeat.  It’s not.  It’s a moment of victory.  In fact, later in the text it says Jacob prevailed.  He prevailed, which leads me to the fourth things that happens when you wrestle with God.

0:22:07.1

When you move through that time of surrender, when you allow Him to touch that area of life that may feel a little wounded, a little broken, then you’re ready to walk in your new identity.  Look what happens in verse 27 and following.  “And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’  Then he said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.’”  First time the Hebrew people were named Israel.  Up to this point—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—we never hear any reference in the Genesis record to the God of Israel until after this time.  “‘Your name shall be Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”  You see, Jacob’s name meant deceiver, trickster, liar, prankster, manipulator, heel-catcher.  Israel means “he struggled with God.”

0:23:18.9

Just a little side note here.  I was thinking this week maybe of some irony here.  I don’t know if this was the case or not.  Adolf Hitler wrote an antisemitic tome called Mein Kompf, which translated means “my struggle.”  Here one of the most evil despots to ever walk this earth, a hater of the Jewish people, a hater of Israel, says, “Let me tell you about my struggle with those people who struggled with God.”  What irony in that.  But what victory for Jacob, who now has a name change.  “Jacob, you are not longer identified with your past.  You’re not longer Jacob.  You’re Israel.  You’ve got a little wound in your hip there, and you’ll never forget how you wrestled with God.  And through this I sanctified a part of you.  Jacob, you’re going to go forward from this point.  You’re not going to be the deceiver and the trickster and the liar and the manipulator you used to be.  You are My chosen Israel.”  Later in the Old Testament the Lord describes His love for Israel, “Israel my bride.”  He has the affection for Israel as a groom would have toward his bride.  And Jacob, of all people, gets this name.

0:24:47.7

Interestingly enough again, we don’t hear any reference to the God of Israel until Genesis 33:12 after the wrestling match.  Really kind of an indication that up to this point Jacob’s faith was not as personal as it needs to be.  He kind of rode the faith of his daddy Isaac, his granddaddy Abraham, maybe even thinking, yeah, I’m all right with God.  I’m a Christian.  And when somebody asks you why, you immediately go, “Well, you know, my granddaddy, he was quite a person of faith.  And my grandma, she was quite a person of faith.”  But isn’t personal to you yet.  This was the night it became very personal to Jacob.  And from this day forward Jacob the trickster, Jacob the deceiver no more.  That’s in the rearview mirror.  But Jacob, who struggled with God, walking in his new identity.

0:25:50.5

You become a believer in Jesus Christ, the Bible says that old things are passed away.  All things have become new.  There is a brand new you.  Not a new and improved you.  Brand new you.  You have a new identity in Christ.  You’re not who you once were.  You’re not defined by your past, whatever might have defined you.  But you are defined by your new relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

0:26:18.3 

Sometimes it takes a wrestling match.  And maybe you’re here this morning, and you thought you were just coming for some Duck Donuts this morning.  But there has been some wrestling going on in your heart.  Just be honest with yourself.  It’s a time to be honest with God and to say, “All right, Lord.  I’ve been wrestling with this for long enough.  I surrender.  You win.  That means I win.  Let the blessing flow, victory come.  Not my will but Yours be done.”
 

0:27:02.7

For some of you, that means coming to the foot of the cross today as a sinner who needs savior.  For others of you, there is something in your life that maybe only you and God know that needs to be surrendered to Him. Let Him into that area.  Let Him touch that area.  Let Him wound you, if necessary, in order to sanctify you and mold you into the image of Christ and into all that He created you to be in the first place.  Will there be some struggle?  Yeah.  Will there be some pain?  Yes.  But you’ll never be the same from that moment forward, from that day forward.

0:28:06.0