On the way back home Jacob find out Esau is coming out to meet him. Esau’s messengers say to Jacob his older brother is coming with 400 men to protect him on the journey home, but Jacob fears Esau is up to some trick and is really out to annihilate his family. So he divides his family into two camps and then in 32:9-12 he prays to God, pleading the promises God, specifically the promise of protecting his vast offspring.
A Contest With God
What comes later that night is one of the most amazing scenes in all the Old Testament. Jacob sends off his wives and sons, and everything else he had. Then notice 32:24-26, “And Jacob was left alone. 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. (Human strength counts for nothing in an encounter with God.) Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” This angel then asks, “What is your name?” Oh, let us hear something of earnest, pained desperation—“My name is Jacob, the deceiver, the heel-grabber.” Notice what comes next in 32:28, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel (literally meaning something like, “God’s warrior”), for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Here is the transformation of Jacob’s scheming weakness into Israel’s warrior strength—it is true faith in a sovereign God who changes men. One scholar says the name change means he “will be God’s conquering warrior in the earth.” Victory over the serpent would come through the one who is named “Israel.”
So Jacob emerges from his struggle with God named and blessed. Which brings to mind the true and faithful Israel, Jesus Christ. In agony at Gethsemane and crushing pain at Calvary Jesus struggled with God. He clung to the Father knowing He could call down a legion of angels to rescue Him from the anguish. Yet, he struggled unto the point of death—not just a limp—and he emerged named and blessed. Philippians 2 says God saw his obedience and so gave him the name that is above every name and so he became the blessing unto all nations as he offers transforms sinners into saints. If you’re in here tonight and are not a Christian, what are you struggling for? Maybe you are struggling earn acceptance before God through your own righteous scheming. Maybe you are struggling to believe that God will accept you and all your failures. The good news of Jesus is that if you would simply turn from your sin and trust in this Savior, His struggle covers your own and brings you life eternal.
Our text ends with chapter 33, which shows us that God did protect his promised blessing to Jacob. Jacob finds out Esau did not come for war but to reconcile and to renew their friendship. The blessing was promised, it was provided, and it was protected. Our God is the Lord of blessing.
Truths About God’s Blessing
A couple weeks ago I finished a fresh reading of Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings. I told Emily after that for the first time in my life I realized one reason why I may love the story so much: I quite identify with the hobbits. I love the quiet, simple life of work and no-fuss drama. I fancy myself as something of a surprising hero of dashing courage and unexpected cleverness. Isn’t that often why we love particular stories; we envision ourselves as being the main character?
If that’s true, and I think it is, we ought to all love the story of Jacob. For, brothers and sisters of the covenant, this man is totally like us. He schemes to earn the blessing, doubts God’s power, fears man, and still find Gods choosing him and changing him. Is that not so keenly similar to the story of our lives? So as we begin to close I want to highlight a couple things about how God’s blessing worked through Jacob life, for we can be sure it still works for God’s people in the same way.
God’s blessing comes from sovereign grace. Rachel tried to receive the blessing of children through mandrakes, Jacob tried to receive the blessing of riches through a white tree branches. Yet, human schemes cannot earn God’s blessing, it’s only channel is sovereign grace. Where in your life might you be trying to earn God’s blessing? Repent of your prideful effort and drop the scheme like a devilish coal on fire.
How did God finally bring Jacob to stop scheming and submit? He crippled Him. God cripples His people’s self-sufficiency. It is the most merciful pain you or I can ever experience. Such crippling, like it did with Jacob, leaves a mark on one’s life. I wonder if others can see your soul as one crippled of its self-sufficiency.
The blessing comes from sovereign grace and . . .
God’s blessing calls for patient, prayerful struggling. The wrestling match with God points to something of the ordinary posture of God’s people. He has promised them—us—His blessing, but we have no idea when it will come. Abraham waited twenty-five years for the promised son of Isaac. Isaac prayed for his wife Rebekah to have children to continue to promised line of offspring and they waited twenty ears. Jacob sojourns twenty years before returning home, and he has to fight with God at the boundary line of the Promised Land. Patient, prayerful struggling is the way of life for God’s people on this side of heaven. Why then do we not lose heart? For the struggle is the struggle of clinging to the Lord, from whom all blessings flow. In Jacob we not only see that God cripples our self-sufficiency, but that God blessed His people’s dependency.
Oh, may we long to be blessed—in the fullness of the biblical term—by the God of Jacob. See tonight that it comes from sovereign grace alone and thus calls for patient, prayerful struggling in this life, waiting for the sunrise of blessing to appear on the horizon. May we individually and corporately struggle with God, saying “we will not let you go until you bless us,” until we can call our church body—like Jacob in 32:30—“Peniel,” for we have seen God face to face. What a blessing that would be. Our God is the Lord of blessing.
This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “Jacob,” on Genesis 28-33.