Genesis: Part 6
Genesis 32:22-32
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing today in our Genesis series. I am loving this series. I hope it's been a blessing and encouragement to you. We are in our series looking at different patterns and themes that are repeated throughout Scripture that find their start here in Genesis. So far we've looked at the power of God's words, bringing order out of chaos. We've looked at Amago Dei and being called to reflect God and His character in the world today. We've looked at the fall and sin entering the world and a human tendency to rebel against God. Last week, Pastor Chris spoke about the pattern of faithfulness in the Bible and God's faithfulness to His people and the call on our lives to be faithful to Him. And remember in Genesis, the first 11 chapters of Genesis kind of follow the world story of what God is doing through the whole world. And then in chapter 12 where Pastor Chris preached last week, we hone in on one family and he calls Abraham. And Abraham is the start of God's blessing over a certain family that will become a nation. And we follow then through the rest of Genesis, his descendants. And so Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob and Esau. And that's what we're going to pause today in our family tree and in Genesis, we're going to look at the life of Jacob.
We've noted in our series so far the theme of the snake. And if you've been with us since the garden message, the very first one, we know that in the garden, there was a snake who tempted Adam and Eve and to rebel against God. And so we kind of, if you study Genesis, you can kind of keep in mind like the theme of the snake, the one who is going to tempt someone or the one who is tempted to rebel against God. And we've had this theme of the snake, even people who are good people that I know that we often think of the heroes of the Bible. We think of these amazing men like Pastor Chris just talked about Abraham being the hero of faith in the Old Testament, living by faith. But he still had snake-like tendencies and had some poor moments where he chose to rebel against God. And so there are moments that everyone, even the heroes, take a moment to, they struggle, they are challenged and they choose sin over God's wisdom and they bring about consequences that they have to live with. The main characters of the Bible, especially here in Genesis, are really struggling. We see so clearly the moments of choosing between sin, selfishness and pride where they don't care who they hurt or step on. And that's what we're calling in our Genesis series the snake-like behavior, someone who is out there to rebel against God and hurt and bring pain and selfishness. So we're coming to Jacob in our series and Jacob, of all the characters so far, is going to be the worst. It's going to be the worst. I want to let you know now, if you love Jacob, that's okay, but he had a really rough start.
Bible projects, if you've heard of Bible projects, they have some great videos and podcasts about this and I encourage you to listen to them, but they say, "Jacob's story is painful, but it shows how stubborn, selfish and nearsighted humans can be." Dr. Tim Mackey says, "Jacob consistently acts more like the snake from the Garden of Eden than the righteous, chosen one from God. He lies his way into blessing that God had intended for him all along." If you're thinking of like, "But I think Jacob is, from what I remember of Jacob, it's all good." Well, let me give you a little recap of Jacob's life so far. It's not just when he's older that he struggles with this, it's from birth that he is kind of a tricky guy. So even before he is born, God comes to Rebekah, his mom, and says that the second-- so Rebekah is his mom and has twins in her womb and God says to her, "The second is the one that I'm going to choose. The second one that comes out will be the one that I give blessing to." Which that's a whole other pattern in Scripture that we won't get into today, but you'll see that repeat over and over again. And so God chooses Jacob. Jacob comes out and he's said that he's holding on to the heel of Esau. Esau comes out first and Jacob is right there, right after him. And so his name translates in Hebrew to "heel-grabber," which kind of means trickster. He's a little trickster. And it suits him because from the very beginning, Jacob is trying to usurp his brother. When they grow up a little bit older, Jacob has multiple attempts to take the blessing that is given to the firstborn, Esau, and he wants to give it. Even though God has already promised that I'm going to choose the second, Jacob's like, "I'm going to get it my way.”
So in Genesis 25, you don't have to turn there. I'll just summarize. Jacob buys Esau's birthright with a bowl of stew. It's a whole funny story that you should go read. But he takes advantage of a situation where Esau is very hungry. And I don't know if you've been to the point of hunger that you would do anything for food, but Esau is at that point. And Jacob says, he doesn't just feed his brother out of love, like, "Oh, you're so hungry." He's like, "Well, what can I get out of this situation right now?" And he gives, and there's a whole situation, a whole conversation, and Esau surrenders his right to the blessing to Jacob. So in Jacob's mind, step one of getting the promise that he wants, getting the blessing he wants, I got it from Esau. Step two would be to confirm that with Dad. I've got to confirm that with Isaac. I've got to get that blessing. And then in Genesis 27, Jacob does just that. He schemes with his mom, Rebekah, who really, she's the mastermind. And Rebekah, it's not a great story for her. In fact, after she does this and in a way rebels against God and tricks Isaac, she is never heard again in the Bible. Her name is not mentioned. Not good. But he has now deceived Esau, and he deceives Isaac. And Isaac, he dresses, it's the story of like getting all the hair, and Isaac blesses him, thinking that it's Esau. And so he has willed his way into receiving blessing, again, that God was already going to give him. Well, because of this, and Esau gets really mad at this, Jacob then is exiled. He exiles himself for 20 years, and he leaves his family. And he comes to work for a guy named Laban. Laban and Jacob take turns deceiving each other. In other words, they're kind of being snakes to each other. They trick each other, and it happens over and over again. But all this, and it's at this time that Jacob marries Rachel and Leah. And at the end of his 20 years, he has a family. He's got four wives, 12 children, many sheep, which is the world's way of back then measuring wealth. So he's very wealthy. And all this we can see is evidence of God's blessing. God has given him a family. He's given him wealth. Despite the chaos that Jacob has caused, God is still blessing him.
One of the most odd stories in the Bible, I think, of a man wrestling with God. And let's just dive in. I love this. So this theme here is building from the situation we got earlier in the garden. Who will humanity follow? Adam and Eve had this. We've seen Abraham face this. All of humanity is facing this decision. Who will I follow? Will I choose my own wisdom, humanity's wisdom, in their own way? Or will I choose God's way, in the way of righteousness and true wisdom? Will they submit to God or go their own direction? And this pattern here is leading to a new pattern, which is wrestling with God, to trust God, to be transformed by God, which ends in submitting to God. We start by seeing, and this is much of the background, that Jacob does not trust God. The control that Jacob must have over his life, the desire to know how everything is going to go. And if he doesn't know, he's going to figure it out. So he's going through the situation with Esau, and he's like, "I don't know how this is going to go, but I will figure this out. I'm going to determine. I'm going to create the ending here. I will make sure that I come out on top." He's going to make it happen for himself, with his own power and with his own wisdom. I like the way that Dr. Mackey says, he says, "ironically, the blessing that Jacob steals is one God destined for him all along. Jacob is either unaware of what God said about him, or he just can't believe it. So he spends his energy trying to scheme and seize the very things God has promised him. He does not trust God." We see in the life of Jacob that his motivation is sometimes selfish, sometimes it's out of fear, but whatever the motivation, it always equates. It comes back to this heart that just does not trust God. And that lack of trust has done so much damage in the life of Jacob. It's so seeds of discord in his family. It's brought anguish to his parents and to his brother and division between him and other people. Again, Jacob is the best picture of a snake that we have outside the garden so far in our Genesis story, and he just has this deep-seated distrust with God.
We also see though, that he is reshaped after wrestling with God. Jacob's MO is to wrestle with people until he gets his way, figuratively or in real life with Esau. He is going to make sure that he ends up on top. He wrestled with Esau to get his birthright and paternal blessing, and now Jacob is wrestling with God in order to gain God's blessing. But after wrestling with God, he never walks the same again. To be candid, I want to say this, in the Hebrew, in the English, we get this very nice, "When the man saw that you could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched." So we get this very like, "Oh, this man, I don't know if you've ever wrestled. I was not a wrestler, but I've seen some wrestling, and it is very like, you know, those guys, they're pretzels. They're just all over each other, trying to twist each other, to tap out." And we think of it maybe as like, God just touched the hip, like this hand just like, boop, and everything happened. In the Hebrew, this may change your... In the Hebrew, it means that he punched him so hard in the groin. That's the real Hebrew picture right there, that God... Now, is this a cheap shot by God? No. This is... It's symbolic. I want to... This is a symbolic moment. I want to unpack just this for a second. In the Hebrew, if you were to read this, you would hear this as like, "All right, so the angel punched him in the groin." And why in the groin? Well, it's symbolic, because that's the physical area that Jacob was able to make his own blessing. He was making his own blessing, making descendants, having the wealth and large family. By doing... He was... Again, here's God's way, here's Jacob's way, and God's saying, "No more of your way." Punched him to get his attention to say to Jacob, "I am blessing you, Jacob. You can't do this by yourself. I am blessing you." He's hit some so hard that it knocks his hip out of place. They didn't have chiropractors back then, so maybe this was for the rest of his life. His hip is out of place.
This whole story, again, will make you think twice about wrestling with God. Jacob walks with a limb for the rest of his life, and he gets a name change. Name changes are common in the Bible to signify an inner transformation. You can think of... We've covered Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah. You have Jacob now, Jacob to Israel. If you go to the New Testament, you think of Simon, and then when he meets Jesus, he becomes Peter. Or Saul, when he meets Jesus, he becomes Paul. And all of it is to give testimony to what's happening on the inside. So we know that after this moment, despite this rough relationship between him and God and the distrust, this changes him. This moment with God, wrestling at night, changes Jacob. And now he becomes Isaac. In Genesis 32, 28, it says, "He will no longer be Jacob, but Israel." Oh, sorry, not Isaac. "Israel, because you have struggled with God with humans and have overcome." And Israel means wounded one or chosen one. And if your minds are connecting dots right now of who a wounded one and a chosen one is, yes, we're foreshadowing what God is going to bring through Jacob's descendants, bringing us to Jesus, who is the wounded one and the chosen one who would bring salvation to the world. So Jacob's heart in this moment, becoming Israel, is transformed. And now he comes to have a new trust and faith in God.
And so we see at the very end that Jacob accepts God's blessing, begins a new relationship with God. This face-to-face struggle with God changes him forever. And it's not to say that Jacob from here on out is perfect and he's no longer a snake. He has some more snake moments. But more often than not, he is choosing God's wisdom, and he is choosing the path of righteousness. He learns better how to surrender and to submit to God's will. Jacob realizes that he wrestled with God, and that meant that he should have died. The scripture tells us that no one can see the face of God and live. It's like staring... I don't know if you've ever done this. You've tried staring into the sun. It's not good. You're not supposed to do it. Because the sun's so powerful and you will blind you. And that's just the same with God. We cannot look at God in the face. It's too powerful and we cannot handle it. And so Jacob knows this and he says, "My life was spared. I should have died.”
And there's something about a near-death experience that makes you grateful for life. I don't know if any of you have had a near-death experience. I'll share my near-death experience. And it's not really death. I would have got seriously hurt. So in college, I longboarded a lot. Not in the water, on land. I longboard like a skateboard. And I was here in Roseville and I was going down a very steep hill. And there was a pack of like ten of us. And I was like, "I'm going to be first." And so I got into a very fast position, aerodynamically. And I was going down this hill very fast. And I don't recommend this to anyone in the room who... Yeah. Looking at the younger ones. The older ones were like, "You're already an idiot. Don't do this." But I was going through stop signs. I was just like blazing through. And this lady did not see me. And so I was going through and I saw the car come... I mean, I had like an inch between me and this car. And we just kind of... I steered away. And I slid like 30 feet on someone's driveway or on their front lawn. And I came out without a scratch. But I remember that lady pulled over. It was all the guys that were longboarding with me were like, "How did that just happen?" And I look back and... Again, not near death, but I do think that if I got hit, my legs would not be here today. And I look back and I was like, "God, you protected me. You seriously... That was... I'm so thankful for you." And I came out more grateful. I came out more humble. And I can only imagine people who have truly more like near-death experiences. They have this moment that they were saved for something. That God was looking after them. And I think Jacob has that feeling right here that, "God, I should have died in your presence because of you. I should have died. But you have me for something." And there's a humility that Jacob has now. There's an understanding that his life is not his, but it belongs to God. And he needs to give more of his life to God. Again, his life is not perfect, but we see now that he lives with this humility and understanding that he is to give more of himself to him, to God.
So we come to the end of our passage and we see this transformation of Jacob. And I want us to think of what that means for us in wrestling with God. And I know, church, that many of us are wrestling with God in different areas of our life. And so I want to pick up on three things that I want you, all of us, to reflect on. Because I'm wrestling with God in different areas of life too. So the first one is this. Wrestling with God may mean a lack of trust in God. Are we like Jacob, and do we have to control everything in our lives? And if it comes to this point where we are wrestling with God, we may need to have an honest look at our hearts and assess, are we not trusting God in a certain area? Is the reason why we're wrestling because we want to do it one way, and we don't feel like God is leading us that way, but we don't necessarily know where he is leading. And so we're wrestling with God. We're saying, "God, I want to do this. Why can't I do this?" Maybe it's with your finances. Maybe it's with your role at work, or with the plan that you have for your life, with family, with the relationship that you have. Whatever it is, are you wrestling with God? And are you, if you were to really take a true assessment and reflect in your heart, is it because maybe you don't trust God with where he says you should be going? What area of your life are you wrestling with God? And is that an area where you're having a hard time surrendering and giving to him this thing that it is? Whatever it is, maybe it's a person, a situation. It may mean a lack of trust in God.
The second thing is, wrestling with God means an opportunity to be reshaped and transformed. Jacob, again, was forever transformed, both physically and in his character. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life, but he also came to trust God. And the snake-like tendencies that he had gave way to a heart that trusted and was transformed and reshaped. And the same is true for us. While we may not walk with a limp for the rest of our life because we're wrestling with God, we will hopefully see evidence of a changed heart inside. As we wrestle with him and then we surrender and we submit, and as time goes on, we can look back and say, "Man, I used to live like this. I used to have a heart that leaned this way, that was prone to do this. But now, now I choose God. Now it's easier for me to say yes to God, to give it over to him." We want to be reshaped and transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit within us. The more that we obey, submit, and surrender, the more our heart is formed to be like Jesus. And the last thing, wrestling with God ends best when we submit to him. In other ways, coming to a place of trusting him. We should not think too highly of ourselves. This is not the law of two immovable forces, which states an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. We are not that powerful.
We need to submit to God in the end. We can have it out. We can say a lot to God. He can take it. We can say, "God, I'm really frustrated. God, I'm really upset. I don't get this. I don't understand. God, I'm angry. I'm hurt. I don't know why you're not--" We can say all of that as long as we come back around to submit to him and to yield to him. If you look at the Psalms, David is often just verbal processing or writing it down. And he says a lot of things that he's got to get out. He's venting. He's questioning. He's wandering. There's a lot of emotions. God created us with those emotions, though. And so I don't want to say like, "Hey, you just have to be a robot and say whatever God says, you got to do it. You can't feel anything." That's not how God created us. We can feel some things, but we have to give God those emotions. Say, "God, I'm really having a hard time. God, I'm angry right now. I'm bitter. I'm this." But just like Jesus teaches us to pray, we have to--at the end of saying all that, we have to come to this place of surrender where we say, "God, not my will but yours be done. God, help me get to a place where I'm no longer feeling these things and I understand what you're doing. At least understand enough where I'm at peace and I can go forward with this plan that you have." We're allowed to say, "God, I don't understand," but we should also follow that with, "But God, what are you doing? I want to know what you're doing. I want to know what you're up to." That line at the end of the Lord's Prayer, it says, "Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." And heaven is the place where God's will is perfectly done all the time. And so when we say that, we're inviting God to say, "Let your will be done here in my life.”
This pattern that we see in Genesis here, again, our point of the series is to see how it repeats throughout Scripture. And so while we don't see anyone else physically wrestle with God in this way--this is a one-off, which is really cool--we do see other people figuratively wrestle with God in this pattern of wrestling with God figuratively and then being transformed or involved in his blessing. And either receiving God's blessing or carrying out his blessing in some way develops. I think of Moses as one, not wanting to be a leader and having conversations with God, wrestling with God, saying, "God, I don't want to do this. I'm not your guy. I'm not the person. Go find someone else." But then Moses being the exact leader that God wanted, God using him, transforming him, and he submits and surrenders and is greatly used by God to carry out God's plan in making Israel, the nation of Israel, a blessing. I think of the New Testament. I think of Peter in the New Testament, who was Simon, becomes Peter, so we see the name change there. But he wrestles with God in a different way. He denies Jesus three times before realizing what he's done. But he, Jesus uses him as the cornerstone of his church in the early church time. Peter is huge and he's a key leader. I think of Saul, who becomes Paul, who is persecuting the early church. Talk about snake-like tendencies, right? The epitome of a snake in the New Testament, Paul is out there, or Saul was out there to end the early church, and then Jesus confronts him and blinds him, and there's scales on his eyes. Do we think that the biblical authors were doing something there by saying scales, referring to the snake? And he gives Saul a new name saying Paul, and he becomes one of the most influential writers of the New Testament and one of the key voices in the early church. And I think in a different way, we see Jesus, not that he was a snake, far from it, he was the perfect lamb, but on the night that he was betrayed, I think he wrestles a bit with God, having that conversation in the garden, saying, "God, is there any other way?" And yet, he exemplifies to us in perfect submission, knowing, "No, there is not, and I have to do what I need to do." And he shows us how to be obedient to God, even to the point of death. So we see this pattern throughout Scripture of wrestling with God can lead to blessing and personal transformation.
So I want to close with this. Are you wrestling with God? Will you submit and surrender to him and allow yourself to be transformed, reshaped by the Holy Spirit as you do so? Like I said, I'll be honest with you, I've been preaching this to myself for the last six months, going through different seasons of wrestling with God. I've been wrestling with God a lot. And sometimes I can feel the pull of, "I'll just do this myself, God. I don't know. You're not giving me answers. I'm not satisfied with what you're saying, so I'm just going to do it. I'm going to go until you stop me." And that's the snake-like tendency in me to say, "God, you're not going by my timeline, so I'm just going to go." I can feel that pull within me, and I also can feel the pull of the Holy Spirit within me saying, "No, you need to submit. You need to surrender." And that can be daily. That can be a daily choice, where the last day you were in a good place and you had peace, and then you wake up the next day and you're wrestling all over again, and you're dealing with the discontentment, and you're saying, "God, why? I know we dealt with it yesterday, but can you remind me again? What is going on? Why are you doing this?" But I promise you that if you come to this place of surrender, if you get into the habit of submitting to God, of yielding, of obeying Him, you will see the transformation in your heart. You will see yourself and be able to understand within you that you are choosing God more quickly, that God is blessing you, maybe not with the exact thing that you want, but He's blessing you, and He's looking over you, looking after you and watching you, and He's going to bless you6