At this time, I'd like to invite everyone here to turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 32. Turn with me in your Bibles, please, to the book of Genesis chapter 32. As you're turning there, let me just say it's a great joy and privilege to be here this evening. Thank you for inviting me to bring to you God's Word. And I bring you greetings from your sister church in Torrance and your sister church in Oceanside. It's a great joy and pleasure to be up here, not sitting on this stage right here, being grilled for my candidacy exam. This is the first time I've been here since then, and it's a joy to be here now without that ahead of me. But we'll be hearing this evening from God's own Word in Genesis chapter 32. Our sermon will be from verses 22 through 32, but I would like to give you some more context to those verses and so I'll be reading the entire chapter of Genesis chapter 32. Give your attention now to the reading of God's holy word. Jacob also went on his way and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, this is the camp of God. So he named that place Mahanaim. Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir. the country of Edom. He instructed them, this is what you are to say to my master Esau. Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my Lord that I may find favor in your eyes. When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and 400 men are with him. In great fear and distress, Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, if Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape. Then Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper. I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea which cannot be counted. He spent the night there and from what he had with him, he selected a gift for his brother Esau. Two hundred female goats and twenty male goats. Two hundred ewes and twenty rams. Thirty female camels with their young. Forty cows and ten male donkeys. He put them in the care of his servants. Each heard by itself and said to his servants, Go ahead of me and keep some space between the herds. He instructed the one in the lead, When my brother Esau meets you and asks, To whom do you belong? And where are you going? And who owns all these animals in front of you? Then you are to say, They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And he is coming behind us. He also instructed the second, the third, and all the others who followed the herds, You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, Your servant Jacob is coming behind us. For he thought, I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead. Later when I see him, perhaps he will receive me. So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him. But he himself spent the night in the camp. That night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him till daybreak. The man saw that he could not overpower him. He touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless Me. The man asked him, What is your name? Jacob, he answered. Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. Jacob said, Please tell me your name. But he replied, Why do you ask My name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. Let's follow the reading of God's holy Word. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that now You would at this time incline us to Your Word. That You would open our hearts and our minds to receive Your truth. And may we be satisfied with Your steadfast love. Lord, reveal to us Your glory in the face of Christ as we meditate upon Your Word. And give us all hearts that respond in gratitude as we hear the glorious Gospel. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. well whoever said that the bible is boring obviously has not read much of it for this evening we have a wrestling match in the bible that we're considering now children this is not the type of wrestling match that you might see on your television screens this is a wrestling match much more like high school or college wrestling. It's a grappling, a serious combat in our text here. Where Jacob is involved in a wrestling match with a mysterious man in the middle of the night. And it's all in the night before he's about to meet his dreaded brother Esau. Now, why does Jacob dread Esau? Well, if you recall with me, Jacob and Esau weren't the best of friends. Remember that when they were born, they were both twins. When they came out of their mother's womb, Jacob was grabbing the heel of his brother Esau. And thus he was given the name Jacob, which means heel grabber. We'll remember later also in that account that Jacob convinced Esau to give him his birthright for a bowl of soup. And then a little bit later, he fools their father into giving him the blessing, impersonating his brother Esau. And so, when Esau found out that scheme, he vowed to kill Jacob. And thus, Jacob had to flee. And so, Jacob fled the land of Canaan. He went east to the land of Paddan Aron to stay with his uncle Laban. And he ended up working for his uncle there for 14 years at least, working for a wife. And if you recall, he first was given Leah, and then he had to work a little bit longer to get Rachel. But all the time that he was there, his uncle Laban was always plotting and scheming against him, and Jacob struggled when he was in that land. But ultimately, God blesses him. as he had promised him. And he has commanded Jacob now to return to the promised land. So Jacob now is returning to the promised land where we find our account this evening. But there's one person he must go through before he can enter once again. So he thinks. His brother Esau, whom last he heard, wants to kill him. Thus, Jacob is afraid of Esau. And it doesn't help that Esau is coming towards him with about 400 men to meet him. And so what does Jacob do? As we read, he sends his brother all these animals, these flocks and this livestock, between 400 and 500 animals. And notice the words he says that his servants are to say to his brother. They are to address him as my Lord on behalf of Jacob. And Jacob is referred to as Esau's servant. So, Jacob believes that all he has to do is pass through Esau. And he cries out to God in prayer, calling upon his covenant faithfulness. But just when he thinks that there's only one person he must pass through before he enters the promised land, he's surprised by this mysterious man that we have in our passage. And from this exciting encounter with a mysterious man, we are given ourselves an illustration of how we receive and inherit our future heavenly land. You see, we too are pilgrims on our way to the promised land of the new heavens and the new earth. And so this evening we'll be considering as we look at this wrestling match the following theme. Inheriting God's promises comes by faith in weakness. Inheriting God's promises comes by faith in weakness. And so, notice with me then, Jacob's struggle, and then Jacob's success, and then finally, Jacob's Savior. First, we consider Jacob's struggle. Notice verses 22 and following. It says, That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons, and crossed the fort of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone. So it's the night time and Jacob is all alone in darkness. What must have been going through his head? Perhaps he's seeking a moment of solitude to pray to God once again. Perhaps he's thinking how God might save him from his brother Esau. Well, whatever is going on in his mind, we can be sure that he was not expecting what happens next. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he's wrestling with a man. A mysterious man in the middle of the night. And it just pops out of the text. Not only does this man come out of nowhere, but all of a sudden, he's in the text. And he's wrestling with this man. He doesn't know who he is. They didn't have exactly streetlights back then. It's dark. It's the wilderness. And he wrestles with him all night long, it says. Now, wrestling is a tiring activity. I'm told that the collegiate wrestling matches last about seven minutes apiece. In high school, about six minutes. This is a wrestling match which lasts all night long. Children, could you imagine wrestling with someone all night long? Perhaps you've wrestled with your father, with your daddy, from time to time. And it's a very tiring activity, isn't it? Jacob wrestles with this man all night long, it says. Well, supposedly this mysterious man realizes that he cannot overpower Jacob. And so he touches Jacob on the hip socket so that his hip is wrenched. The man cripples Jacob with the mere touch of his finger after wrestling with him all night. All it takes is the touch of a finger to wrench his hip out of its socket. Don't ask any wrestler how important his hips are in wrestling. Indeed, it is the wrestler's pivot of strength when they wrestle. And does Jacob then tap out in this wrestling match as we would think that he would? No, he's crippled, yet he clings all the more to this man. And the man asks Jacob to let him go before the sun rises, saying, let me go, for it is daybreak. And as the dawn is coming shortly, it dawns on Jacob who this man is. It's the angel of the Lord, God Himself, appearing as a man. How does Jacob realize this? Well, perhaps he obviously realizes this by the fact that this man has supernatural strength. He merely just has to touch his hip socket and it's wrenched out a joint. Furthermore, perhaps this man's sentence tips him off. Moses, if you recall, asked to see God's glory and God said to him, You cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live. So perhaps Jacob realizes is that if he is to see this man's face in the unobscured light of day, he would surely die. He confirms that it is God for us in verse 30. Why does God then come to Jacob in this way? It's such a strange encounter, isn't it? It's because God wants Jacob to know that all of his struggles to inherit God's promises in his own strength are futile. He must ultimately struggle with God. And he can only prevail by faith in weakness. God's promises come by grace through faith. It is God who had promised to Jacob in Genesis 28, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Notice all the I's in those promises. There's not a single we there. This isn't cooperation. We don't receive God's promises through cooperation, but by faith and by faith alone. All his life, Jacob grasped at God's promise in his own strength and in his own way through deception and clever schemes rather than waiting on the Lord and accepting His promises by faith. Remember, this is Jacob who came out of the womb grasping at his brother's heel. Jacob struggled with men and prevailed over them with deception and his own strength. But now he could not depend on his own strength and deception. He's crippled. He has no power. He can't even stand up anymore. So after all of Jacob's struggles with men and grasping at the promised blessing and his own strength, He was now struggling with God Himself. The only One who could give Him true blessing. And the only One who could ultimately prevent Him from returning to the promised land. But God had promised to bring Him back and He alone would do it. Now does God ever deal with us in this way? Maybe not in a literal wrestling match. I don't think anybody here has ever wrestled with God in this way. But God does at times send us various trials to test our faith in order to purge us of our own self-reliance. Thus, John Calvin wrote this on this passage. He said, It is right to keep in view the design of this vision, which is to represent all the servants of God in this world as wrestlers because the Lord exercises them with various kinds of conflicts. Our faith is tried by Him. And whenever we are tempted, our business is truly with Him. Not only because we fight under His auspices, but because He as an antagonist descends into the arena to try our strength. Interesting what Calvin says there. He as an antagonist descends into the arena to try our strength. You see, what Calvin is pointing out is that this story bears significance for us too because we too will go through conflicts and obstacles on our way to the promised land. But these conflicts are ultimately designed by God for our good and for His glory. And so sometimes God will test us where it might seem like He is trying to destroy us. Where we might ask, is He really for us? Or is He really against us? Perhaps it's losing a job in this economy. Perhaps it's losing a loved one. Perhaps it's being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Well, what do we do in these situations? Beloved, we cling to God all the more by faith in His promises. God's promises remain true for us even in our valleys. They are true for us even in all the depths of darkness that we might walk through, as Psalm 23 puts it. And so we must say with the psalmist, Whom have I in heaven but You when there is nothing on earth that I desire but beside You? My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. You see, God may strip you of everything that you value, that you hold dear, but nevertheless, if God is your Father for the sake of Christ, then He is working it out for your good, ultimately, and for His glory. And as the author of Hebrews tells us, He will never punish His dear children in anger. But He only disciplines us in love throughout all the trials that we might face. How then do we prevail with God in these situations? Notice Jacob's success with me. It's remarkable here that Jacob wins this wrestling match with God. But it's an odd win. It's a very strange victory. The late Edmund Clowney wrote this about this passage. He says, Jacob's victory was not, of course, a conquest. He had not mastered the angel of God. Lame and helpless, he could only cling to the One who had laid hold of him. His victory was a victory of faith. He had power with God when His power was gone and he knew it. You see, he didn't really win technically this wrestling match physically, but he won it by faith. You see, because the only way Jacob could inherit the promised blessing was by faith alone. In his own strength, he was condemned, but in his weakness, as he sought God by faith alone, he was justified. In losing the wrestling match, he's declared the winner by his faith, which is ultimately what this trial by combat is all about. And through this trial, he is purged of his self-reliance so that by faith he must look outside himself and cry out to his sovereign Lord, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So, Jacob clings to God. And what does God do? Notice, he asks him his name. And then he renames him. And you see, this is part of his blessing. What does Jacob's name have to do with anything? And why does his name change a blessing? Children, did you know that names meant a lot in Bible times? They were linked with personality and destiny. You may remember that Abram's name was changed to Abraham. And Saul's name was changed to Paul. Furthermore, naming someone was a sign of superiority. And in this renaming, God shows His superiority over the patriarch. And so God asks Jacob His name. Now children, did God really need to ask Jacob what his name was? Doesn't God know all things? Surely He does, children. But you see, what God is doing here is He's drawing out a confession from Jacob. Remember that Jacob's name meant heel grabber. But it also meant deceiver or supplanter or cheater. Which is why when he schemed against his brother and stole the blessing from their father, Esau cried out, His name is rightly called Jacob. because of his deception. And so, this name shows his character. And for the first time possibly in our passage, Jacob owns up to his name. He confesses to the angel of the Lord, to God, My name is Cheater. My name is Supplanter. Now does God then destroy him in his sin? No, He blesses him by changing his name to Israel, which means he strives with God or he prevails with God. You see, God reorients his life by giving him a new name with a new meaning to it. Now his name would represent a good struggle with God. One in which all God's people must go through. The prophet Hosea reminded the nation Israel in their struggles to remember Jacob's strange victory and to seek the Lord's favor once again through repentance and faith. In Hosea 12, we read, in the womb, he grasped his brother's heel. As a man, he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him. He wept and begged for his favor. So, beloved, how do you overcome in the Christian life. It's the same way. It's by repentance and faith. It is a continual struggle that we all must go through. Jacob sought God's favor with tears of true repentance and by faith in God's promise. And you see, this was a good struggle because it was the struggle of faith. Inheriting God's promises indeed comes by faith and weakness. And through much struggle in this pilgrim life, success for Jacob met faith and weakness. God dealt with him amid his deceptions, but he prevailed with God as he wept and sought His grace. And so too, beloved, do we receive God's blessings by grace through faith in His promises even amidst our own personal sins and struggles. You see, we all have sin in our lives like Jacob. And yet, we can receive God's blessing even as miserable sinners as we look to Christ by faith. And if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ alone, you yourself, dear Christian, have been given a new name. As the Heidelberg Catechism asks, why are you called Christian? You see, you have a new name as well as you look to God by faith in Jesus Christ. Your name is no longer murderer. Your name is no longer gossip or idolater or cheater or thief or whatever besetting sins have plagued your life. Your new name is Christian. God has reoriented your life that you might walk in newness of life as a Christian. And it is by God's grace that you are called to fight the good fight of faith. To take hold of eternal life to which you were called. Putting to death your old self. Being made alive in Christ. And this is a wrestling match that is worth fighting for in this life. Your former way of life is destined to perish. But this struggle that we go through in life, the Christian life, only goodness comes at the end of it. Because we will live forever in the eternal promised land. Does God promise us our best life now? No. We have not been given the name of Christ that we might never again be sick or have a beautiful house or have the perfect car. No, Christian victory looks strange often. You see, God may give you health. He may give you wealth. But these things aren't the measure of victory in the Christian life. Victory in the Christian life is when all is lost, we cling to God by faith as Jacob does here. God indeed has a promised land for you, but it is not here on this earth that is fading away. It's ultimately in a a new heavens and a new earth. And the good news and the hope that we have is that if we suffer in this life in Christ, surely we will be glorified with Him in heaven. And the sufferings that we face in this life, the trials and afflictions that we go through are not worth comparing to the glory that awaits us. And so, beloved, continue to fight the good fight of faith until the final day when we will finally be delivered from all of our struggles, finally and forever. And God will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able. For as He has said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. And so too is God's grace sufficient for you. And so continue to come on the Lord's day to receive the means of grace by faith. It is when we come and hear the Word of God preached, when we hear the Gospel, when we partake of the sacraments, that the Holy Spirit is mightily at work in our lives to nurture our weak faith so that we might continue in the Christian life through this wilderness that we have to wander through. And so continue to be nurtured by the means of grace for it is in the means of grace that we are directed to Christ our Savior. For ultimately, it is as we look to God by faith in Christ that we are truly blessed ultimately. And so notice with me then, Jacob's Savior in our passage. Jacob's Savior and our Savior is Jesus Christ. And He's foreshadowed in our text in two roles. In the first place, He's the One who is the Lord of the Covenant. The One whom we can look to and see the face of God and live. Jacob had seen the face of God. In verse 30 it says, So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. So Jacob is blessed by seeing God's face in some measure, And in spite of his sin, he lives. And yet, he had a limited revelation compared to what we have in Christ. The Apostle John begins his Gospel by saying in v. 18 of chapter 1, No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, that is Christ, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known. And then our Savior Jesus says, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. Paul the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 4, For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. You see, beloved, Jesus is the face of God that we might see God and yet live. He is our Peniel. He is the face of God. And so Jesus, in a pre-incarnate form, was the One whom Jacob was wrestling with. Now, Jacob was denied His name. But beloved, we have been given His name. What is concealed in the Old Testament is revealed to us in the New Testament that it is Christ who is the face of the glory of God. The One in whom all of the promises of God are fulfilled. The One to whom we are to look. The One whom we are to cling to by faith. And the reason we do not perish in our sins, but are blessed by Him is because He is not only our Peniel, but He also is our final Israel. Just as Jacob has his name changed to Israel, Jesus is the final Israel who perfectly fulfills the role of the servant of the Lord. Who perfectly fulfills the Israel that Jacob could have never fulfilled, nor the nation Israel as well. And so in the prophet Isaiah, we read of a servant of the Lord who would come and would perfectly obey God. Perfectly fulfill all covenant faithfulness. And so we find in Isaiah 49 of this servant, and he said to me, You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. And beloved, no one has ever struggled with men and with God like Jesus did. All of His life, He wrestled with men. In Isaiah, we read in chapter 53, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. When He was done wrestling with men, He ultimately wrestled with the Father. In the garden of Gethsemane, He was alone. in the middle of the night. And He cried out in prayer. And we read that He sweat drops of blood in Luke's Gospel. Because He knew the cup of wrath that He was to drink of on the cross. Where He finally wrestled with God on the cross. Where He was struck for our sake. Interestingly, there's a foreshadowing in our passage of the striking of Jesus. Notice that Jacob is struck on his thigh. Well, the thigh in these days was a reference typically to one's descendants. For it was the seat of one's reproductive organs. So the other two times in the Bible when this word is used with reference to Jacob, it refers to his descendants. And furthermore, the word touched can also be translated as strike to strike. And it's the same word that we read of in Isaiah 53, verse 4. He was stricken, smitten by God. And thus, the striking of Jacob's thigh was a foreshadowing of the striking of that descendant of Jacob who would be struck by God. Who would bear the wrath of God on the cross on our behalf who would cry out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And although He was sinless, He bore God's wrath. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And though we all sin, we are declared righteous through faith in Him. As Isaiah 53 says, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. And as Jacob was given a new name, so too was our Lord given that name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of the Father. Beloved, Jesus Christ is our Peniel. And thanks be to God that He is our final Israel. Thanks be to God that He sent His Son to die for our sins. To perfectly be that One whom we could never be. For we all were Jacobs. We all were murderers and thieves and stealers and gossipers. whether it be actually or in our hearts. And all of us need this grace. All of us need the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And it's because of His perfect life and sacrificial death that we can look to God by faith in Him and be justified in God's sight to see the face of God and yet live and to be renamed Christian. One who is called to live a new life. One who is called to a good fight. The struggle of faith in this pilgrim life. And just as the Israelites remembered the wrestling of their father Jacob by not eating the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, so too, beloved, do we remember our Lord Jesus' wrestlings when we partake of our Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day. Beloved, thanks be to God for Jesus Christ in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen. Inheriting the promises come by faith and weakness through much struggle, but it's all worth it in the end. So, beloved, what sort of struggles are you facing this week? What sort of struggles are you facing this week? Beloved, look to God. Let us strive with God by faith in Jesus. Let us cling to God alone in Jesus' name as those who have been renamed with the name Christian. Jacob ultimately made it to the promised land. He ultimately met his brother Esau. We read in Genesis 33, verse 4, But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. He threw His arms around His neck and kissed Him. And they wept. What a beautiful ending to this story. Jacob made it home to the promised land. And beloved, so too will you make it home to the promised land, to the new heavens and the new earth as we struggle by faith even so to get there. But ultimately there, We will live forever in eternal blessedness with no possible threat of curse. And we will see Jesus Christ face to face. Amen.