Sermon – “Wrestling with God”

9 Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’: 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. 11 Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. 12 For You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” 13 So he lodged there that same night, and took what came to his hand as a present for Esau his broth-er…

22 And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. 23 He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. 24 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” 27 So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” 28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is pre-served.” 31 Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.

41 So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42 And the words of Esau her older son were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, “Surely your brother Esau comforts himself concerning you by intending to kill you. 43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice: arise, flee to my brother Laban in Haran.

22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.”

Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. 6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday.

40 One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translat-ed, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone).

Today my message titled wrestling with God and you know many people wrestle with God They wrestle with the idea of faith they wrestle in is there a God they wrestle with surrounding their lives or wrestle with the things of the world in giving them up and allowing God to control their lives but today’s passage again I’m going back to the Old Testament and there was a man that wrestled with God and His name was Jacob he actually wrestled with God it was that he wrestled with the man all night long so here the word of the Lord comes to us from Genesis chapter two verses nine to thirteen and twenty two through thirty two. Then Jacob said oh God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac and the Lord who said to me return to your country and to your family and I will deal well with you I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff and now I have become two companies deliver me I pray from the hand of my brother from the hand of Esau for I fear him that’s a common attack me and a mother with the children for you said to for you said I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as a sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for a multitude so he lodged there that same night and took what came to his hand as a present for Esau his brother and picking up a verse twenty two and heroes that night and took his two wives his two female servants and his eleven sons eleven there will be twelve Benjamin had not yet been born his eleven sons and cross over the ford of J. book he took them and sent them over the brook. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day now when he saw that he did not prevail against him he touched the socket of his hip and the socket of J.P. Jacob’s hip was out of joint and he wrestled with him and he said let me go for the day breaks but he said I will not let you go unless you bless me so he said to him What is your name and he said your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed then Jacob asked Saint tell me your name I pray and he said why is it that you ask about my name and he bless him there so Jacob called the name of the place but i’ll for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved just as he crossed over ten you’ll The sun rose on him and he lived on his hip therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat that the muscle that shrank which is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip and the muscle that shrank May got out his blessing so the hearing and a reading of His Holy Word let us pray grace to seventy father we do thank you and praise you for your word for it is through your word that you reveal yourself to us it’s through your word that you reveal your relationship with mankind is so your word to reveal your mercy and your love and father we just pray that your word would do force Lord is that all that are here and all that are hearing of the airways or May your word touch our hearts or God may your award touch us and move us and help us to grow in our love and understanding of you Lord May every word spoken bring you glory and honor and we ask all this in Jesus’ name amen in Jacob’s own words he says that I have become to companies that he acknowledges that the Lord has greatly blessed him when Jacob crossed over that Jordan whenever he went into the land of his uncle he had nothing in his hand but he staff nothing but a staff and now he has two wives eleven sons. The his wives maids and all these servants and livestock he had all these things but now he’s fearful he’s fearful weeds brother and you know Congo a little sidestep here you knew where you stood with Jacob because whenever he took his wives and all these children he put them on the other side of the river he placed them he put his favorite wife further away then his not so favorite wife Jacob had two wives Rachel and Leah and it’s it’s very clear that he loved Rachel more than the lovely and he put Rachel and her children farther away then leave it and then he had himself on the other side of the river he had in self between giving credit for that he had himself between his wives and his brother he knew which direction is brother was coming so further safety he put them on the other side of the river and he was left there alone but Jacob had fled for his life twenty years prior to this twenty years because he had tricked his father into receiving his father’s blessing whenever it should have went to Esau his older brother but he tricked his father into receiving that so his fears were definitely warranted because his brother wanted revenge he wanted to kill Jacob Now his mother had a little hand in this little plan of the SEPs and his father Isaac Isaac is the son of Abraham you have Isaac Abraham Isaac and then Jacob Isaac was well advanced in years his eyes had went bad his eyes and fail and he couldn’t see so I seek knowing that his time was drawing near said to his eldest son Esau he said who is a hunter he says I want you to go out into the field and I want you to hunt game and I want you to come back and fix me that savory stew that you fix me he says and after you have done this I will give you my blessing Well Rebecca Isaacs wife here’s this. And she knows that the blessing is meant for Jacob so she devises this plan she says now Jacob listen to me I want you to go get a go or a lamb and I want you to bring it to me and I will fix this too for your father and I want you to go into Him and He will bless you instead of Esau your brother Jacob says Whoa whoa whoa wait a minute wait a minute have you seen your senior other son lately I mean he’s a hairy dude he’s had he’s a real hairy fella he says and I’m smooth skin not paraphrasing here this is wrong to paraphrase and I’m smooth skin now I know he can’t see but what if he has me come to him and wants to touch me he’s going to know right away that I’m not Esau she says no you just listen and go do as I tell you I have a plan so she takes the skin of the goats and wraps his Ormonde at the top of his hands with it and she even had some of Esau as close to put on him so that once as he took this student to his father he sounded like Jacob he says it’s the voice of Jacob he says but come near I want to touch you so he goes and he touches and he feels that goatskin he gives Well yeah there’s a very arms and then he as he leaned close and kissed him he says there’s the smell because he smelled the clothes of the salt there is that smell oh yes you are my son and he gives him his blessing he blesses and that he will be a father of many a many nights of a great people and he stole great blessings upon Jacob and Jacob no more than receive the blessing and and grabbed up the dishes and went out and in comes the Saul with his stew that he just prepared he says Father I’m here for my blessing he says well I already gave it who was here and then they realized that Jacob had deceived his father tricked his father and received the blessing. And he’s always ready to kill his brother and Genesis Chapter twenty seven verses forty one through forty three it says so Esau all hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him and he still said in this heart the days of mourning from off father are at hand then I will kill my brother Jacob and the words of Esau her older son were told to Rebecca so she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him surely your brother Esau comforts him selfe concerning you by intending to kill you now therefore my son obey my voice arise and flee to my brother Laban in her ran you know is as I picture twins as I think of twins and my mind is on vision I’m you know I think of the young young boys or young girls just almost inseparable and I can say this because we have twins that live right across the road from the US and are eleven years older ten years older much to eleven I think anyway and they’re almost inseparable I mean you see if you see one you see the other and sometimes not sure which one you’re seeing because they’re identical but now these two are no we’re not identical twins because one’s Harry one’s not but they’re almost inseparable these young twins that live across the road my nephews boys and most twins are like that they’re almost inseparable but that is not the case with these two they are not inseparable as a matter of fact they are about as opposite as you can come Esau was the outdoorsy type he loved the heart and and I don’t know if they fish I’m not sure if there’s any lakes or streams there but he’s the outdoors type he probably like to hunt and fish I’m just using today’s terms you know he would take his bow and arrow and go out in hot and prepare food for his father he was a daddy’s boy at the Scripture is very clear that he saw Isaac loved it Esau he was his favorite Jacob on the other hand he was not the outdoorsy type the scripture says that he hung around the tents he stayed around the tents he was a mama’s boy his mama loved him very much and he and his mother grew very close and she helped him understand his destiny no doubt telling him of the prophecy that he would rule over his older brother. Because it was prophesied it was told her of the Lord so yes that’s why she was so vital when this plan Jacob struggles or wrestling with man in God began long before this deception of are receiving the blessing it began in their mother’s womb in Genesis Chapter twenty five verses twenty two through twenty three it tells us but the children struggled together with her and she said if all is well why am I like this so she went to inquire of the Lord and the Lord said to her two nations are in your womb two people shall be separated from your body one people shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger the Lord revealed it to her that the older shall serve the younger that’s what she was helping God fulfill his plan when she came up with this we like to help God with the plan sometimes don’t we but we sometimes get it wrong but imagine that you know I have no idea what it feels like to have a baby inside there kick in you know use women on these women No but there was a wrestling match going on inside her belly because there was two nations in there struggling they were fighting inside the womb and it carried on as a group so the birth of these two was an act of prophecy concerning the future a soul came out first read and Harry scripture says he was Harry at his birth Jacob follows immediately and his hand he was actually grit gripping the heel of the solve there wasn’t no delay Esau came out Jacob had a hold of these heel they had the prize little fingers off of a seal it’s almost like he’s saying no no me first me first. They had to prise little fingers off his brother’s heel the name Jacob means he grasped the heel or figured fully he deceives Jacob has often been referred to as the great deceiver but maybe we should cut him a little slack because we know that all this was done to accomplish God’s plan remember God had a certain plan set in place concerning whom his prophecy would be fulfilled He had a certain plan set in place between concerning whom the Messiah would come Think back to Abraham the promise that God gave Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and he would his is children and the descendants would be as the sand of the sea and we know that Abraham and Sarah also tried to help God with his plan Sarah was barren she had had a child so she said Abraham will take my maid Hagbart maybe she can bear a child for me and we know that Ishmael was born so they thought they were doing well and helping got along with his plan but God says no no. That is not my plan it is through your seed in Sayres that the Messiah will come it’s through you so we know that Isaac was born we know that that is God’s plan and it was God’s plan that it would be through Jacob not he saw that the Messiah would come so it’s his plan it’s not our plans it’s not to say that we shouldn’t plan but it’s not to say that we shouldn’t set goals we should but we should make sure they’re in line with God’s goals I found this interesting thing it’s not real spiritual but only three percent of all people have goals and plans that actually write them down. Ten percent more have goals and plans but they keep them in their heads the rest and eighty seven percent drift through life without definite goals or plans they do not know where they are going and others dictate to them so let’s examine the statistics a little further the three percent who have goals and plans that are written down accomplish fifty to one hundred times more during their lifetime then the ten percent who have goals and plans and just keep them in their heads that should motivate us to set goals and plans not just for selves but also for our church God had plans and he wrote them down where here they are they met God has plans and he’s given them he has given them to us we need to have plans we need to have a vision for our lives and for church and commit them to God trust Him to him songs thirty seven five and six says. Major way to the Lord trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass he shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday when Jacob wrestled with God This was not his first encounter with God when he left her she would to go to her ran the place where Laban lived and he had a dream and in that dream there was a ladder set upon the earth you’ve heard of Jacob’s ladder it was set upon the earth and in that dream he saw the angels ascending and descending upon that ladder and in that dream the Lord stood above it and the Lord spoke to Jacob saying I am the Lord God of Abraham your foot and the God of Isaac the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants draw the Lord also told him that is the sentence would be as the dust of the earth that’s a lot of the sentences it and that is see in his seat all the families of the Earth would be blessed and it was in his seed that all the families of the Earth would be blessed and again as I said in the beginning when he crossed over that Jordan he had nothing but his staff and he’s hands nothing but the staff Jacob’s life is an example of a life that was filled with struggles. He wrestled with his brother in a sense he wrestled with his father in law he wrestled with his wives really if you will because of the the conflict that he had with the with these wives Jacob as I said he went to his uncles and after he was arab it will said you know what why should you work for me for nothing you know name your wages and well he already had eyes for Rachel he says well he says I’ll tell you what I’ll make you a deal I work for you for seven years for your youngest daughter Rachel he says Well it sounds like a pretty good plan and so he worked for him for seven years and Jacob said they seem like only days because of his love for Rachel that’s how much he loved her so when the end of the seven years came. Jacob when he says OK I work my seven years I want my bride so Laban devised a plan they had their face they had a celebration and he had ease eldest daughter Leah in the tent and of course as the evening wound down he said Go into the tent to your bride where he wakes up in the morning it isn’t till morning that he realizes he’s been to see the deceiver has been deceived he wakes up and sees that he has lame in a set of Rachel he’s probably wishing he had a night light but they didn’t have Night Lights he wakes up and he finds out it serves so he goes to his father noises a whoa wait a minute he says you to see me says You tricked me he says it was for Rachel that I work for he said that’s not the way it’s done in our land he said the eldest daughter must be given away first he says tell you what you do you you give her a week give her bridal week he says then you work for me another seven years or he says I’ll give you Rachel then you work for me another seven years so he was gracious he gave him Rachel but he still had to work an additional seven years fourteen years he worked for his father LOL for his These two women then at the end of that he says well I still have nothing it’s all yours. So they worked out another deal was you work for me six more years then I’ll give you the flocks and herds so twenty years of his life he worked that’s how I went back across there to great companies but there was a war within that family Leah was very fertile she bore him four sons and Rachel had yet the Berryman son so she gave him her maid she bore him a couple sons and then Leah gave her maid and she bore some sons finally Rachel bore son you might recognize his name was Joseph So again as I mentioned you know where you stood with Jacob I think everyone’s probably familiar that Joseph was his favorite son because he made him that code of many colors so you knew were used to it which. He did wrestle throughout his life then he found he wrestled with God and Genesis thirty two again verse twenty eight and he said your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed Fred this is no fairy tale story this really happened it truly happened could you imagine wrestling with God all night long and prevailing he prevailed what amazing what an amazing story what an amazing example of patience and determination that Jacob’s life is he was determined to have that blessing he was determined to have Rachel he was very patient and he worked all these years twenty years a very patient man that God said to him you will no longer be called Jacob but your name shall be Israel there’s a change in that name when we are truly touched by God. Brothers and sisters we will never be the same we let God touch our lives we will never be the same when we allow the Holy Spirit to influence our lives Jacob went off by itself to a solitude place British S.A.’s water Savage Land or called solitude the audience chamber of God and he was right when we are alone with God when we don’t have the distractions of other people we don’t have the distractions of the world that is when we come face to face with God and that solitude place and we can allow him to change truly change our lives when we are touched spiritually or even physically will never be the same God pronounces blessing on Jacob you shall no longer be Jacob but Israel your name shall be Israel which means strives with God For you have striven with God in man and prevailed you know maybe we should think about whenever we accept Christ and repent of our sins maybe we ought to change our names I’d be pretty cool but in a sense he does changes maybe we were that angry man but we’re now we’re that kind and gentle man maybe we were thief but now we’re a generous giver maybe we were a liar but now we’re truth teller why because we’ve been touched by Jesus we’ve been touched by God spiritually what blessing do you want from God How badly do you want are you willing to wrestle with God There are times when God only releases his blessings on us after a prolonged period of painfulness or wrestling with him in a sense sometimes he has to break us break our will so that he can use us A.W. Tozer said the Lord cannot fully bless a man until he has first conquered him God conquered Jacob by weakening him Are you ready to be conquered by God That’s the question today Are you ready are you willing to be conquered by God. You know the last time that someone asked Jacob his name we read it it was his dad who are you why me why I didn’t read it I mean I saw your oldest son so the last time someone asked Dick of that he lied God was seen if he’s going to tell the truth I’m Jacob he told the truth this time we got to ask him that Hey man are you going to continue to live up to your name which means deceiver are you going to admit who you are and allow me to change you that’s the question for all of us are we going to allow God to change us are we willing to wrestle with him in the Bible receiving a new name signifies a new beginning in John chapter one versus forty three forty two one of the two do her job speak and followed him was Andrew Simon Peter’s brother he first found his own brother Simon and said to him we have found the Messiah which is translated the Christ and he brought him to Jesus now when Jesus looked at him he said you are Simon son of Jonah you shall be called See focus which is translated a stone he changed his name how awesome he can change us it doesn’t have to be a change in our name but he changes who we are he changes or character or to be says when God rules our lives then he can trust us with his power for only those who are under his authority have the right to exercise his authority so the only way we get authority is by surrendering by surrendering quit wrestling to have your room way wrestle with God for His blessings but surrender your will surrender your own way let him have it and then you will be under his authority and you have his authority Amen.