This week's message is about wrestling with God. It's something that we all do, and some time wrestling with God can bring great blessings, but I'm not sure we all do it for the right reasons. We'll explore those reasons in this message. This week’s message is based on Genesis 32:22-31.
I love this story of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob was wrestling with a man, and he even said he didn’t know who this man was, but don’t let him fool you. He knew that he was wrestling with God. And probably what I love most about this story, is that I wrestle with God sometimes myself. Do you ever wrestle with God? Do you ever struggle to understand Him? Do you ever get frustrated with what He is doing – and tell Him so? Frustrated with the things He brings to you, and you tell Him so? I have to admit that I do. From time to time, I really have a spiritual knock down and drag out fight. But there’s a difference between my fights, and Jacob’s fight. I don’t know about you, but I suspect that your wrestling matches with God are similar to mine. I’m trying to convince God to do something my way. I’m trying to get God to understand what I know. To realize that I’m right, and that He should do what I ask. I know that sounds pretty cocky, pretty self-assured. And I would certainly never suggest that I know more about God’s business than God does. But really, when you boil it right down, that’s about what it amounts to, isn’t it? And I suspect that every one of you has been there. I suspect that every one of us wrestles with God, struggling to convince Him to answer our prayers in a certain way, to provide for us in a certain way, to give us certain things. That’s what our wrestling is usually all about, isn’t it? I want to suggest this morning that that’s not what we should be wrestling for. Maybe we aren’t doing it right. Even though we all do it, perhaps these are not the things we should be wrestling with God for. I say that because I’m familiar with the passage that says, “All things were created by Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). And I know that includes me – I was created by Him and for Him. He made me for Himself. So my will should be surrendered to His will, and I know that wrestling with God to get Him to do things for me, isn’t being surrendered to God’s will. Then, why did Jacob wrestle with God? Why didn’t he just accept whatever God was bringing his way? Let me touch on the context of this passage, then I’ll try to answer that question, and then I’ll close with some advice for our struggles with God. Back in Genesis 27, we see Jacob, taking his mother’s advice, and dressing up like his brother Esau, hoping that his father, Isaac would give him the family blessing. The scheme worked, His father was very sick, he couldn’t see too well, and fell for the substitution. Of course, Esau found out, he was very upset, and he threatened to kill Jacob after the appropriate time to mourn his father was over. Afraid for his life, he fled to his Uncle Laban in Haran. He spends at least fourteen years with Laban, marries two of his daughters, and works very hard building a great fortune in flocks and goods. But Laban’s attitude toward Jacob changes, and he again flees. The Lord appears to him and tells him to go home. Go back to the land of your Fathers, and I will be with you. So he goes. In this passage this morning, he’s almost there. But he’s more than just a little concerned that Esau may still be angry. So he sends a messenger to his brother Esau, telling him he’s coming home. Then he finds out that Esau is coming out to greet him – but he’s not alone! He’s got over 400 men with him. That doesn’t sound good, does it? The last time you saw him, he wanted to kill you. When he finds out your coming home, he brings 400 men out to meet you before you get there. It doesn’t sound good for Jacob. These 400 hundred men could easily annihilate Jacob, destroy him and everything he was bringing with him, all that he was able to accumulate during his years with Uncle Laban. Jacob was concerned, and maybe he had a right to be – I can’t say that I wouldn’t be concerned if I were in his shoes. And so he is very cautious, and expects the worst. He devises a plan that involved splitting up everything he owned - his sheep, his donkeys, his servants, even his wives, into two groups, so if one group is attacked, the other might survive. He sends them on ahead, and that’s where we picked up the reading this morning. So you see, Jacob is frightened. He is scared that Esau and his four hundred men will kill him, his family, his servants, and his livestock. And maybe he’s being a little bit of a coward, but he sends everyone else ahead. He stays back, by himself. That phrase, “by himself,” seems to be very important. The passage repeated that he was alone a few times. Jacob is alone. And then a man appeared out of nowhere during the night, and they started wrestling. I suppose that you might make a case that this was a spiritual wrestling. That Jacob was deep in prayer, struggling through a very difficult time of prayer. I know that that’s the kind of wrestling I do with God. But in this case, I don’t think this was true with Jacob. I think that for whatever reason, God actually appears to Jacob. Perhaps a reassurance of His presence. Perhaps to bring comfort before tomorrow’s big event – the family reunion Jacob was so worried about. I don’t know. But I do know that during the struggle, God touched Jacob’s hip, and Jacob was injured from their wrestling together. We don’t get physically injured from a time of spiritual prayer, no matter how distraught we may be. What’s more, the next morning, after the sun comes up, and Jacob walks on to meet his brother, he has a limp. A reminder of God’s presence the night before. Jacob isn’t upset about this, because he knows that he has seen God face to face, and he lived to tell about it. I suspect that Jacob limped with pride, it was a battle scar Jacob was proud of. So looking into the context of this passage, I think we get a better idea of why Jacob was wrestling with God. But what does the bible say about our struggles with God? I think we can at least three primary ways we might struggle with God, or wrestle with God. The first is in our struggle for righteousness. If we are all serious about our faith, then we have a desire to be right with God. In Acts 24:16, Paul is defending himself before Felix, the Governor from Caesarea, and Paul said, “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” If I am going to follow God, I need to strive to always keep my conscience clear before God and man. In Matthew 7, part of the sermon on the mount, Jesus says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” How do we make sure we’re on the narrow road, entering through the narrow gate? Obviously our salvation leads to the narrow gate, we’ll never find that narrow gate if we don’t first go to Jesus and seek forgiveness. But holiness is in the mix, also. We can’t say “yes” to Jesus and continue living as we’ve always lived. We need to strive toward holiness. And sometimes doing the right thing is hard, it involves a struggle, we’re sometimes wrestling with ourselves. But that’s how we find the narrow gate, and that’s how we keep our consciences clear before God and man. The second way we struggle with God, or wrestle with God, is in the discipline of prayer. Prayer is something that necessary for us to live in a life of faith, but it’s also something we often wrestle with. Maybe we don’t get the answer we were expecting, or we don’t see results, or often, it’s just because we’re not getting our way, often our prayers are asking God for those things we want, not those things God wants. And we can really wrestle when there is a discrepancy between the two. In Colossians, Paul lifts up Epaphras as an example of a prayer warrior. Paul is giving his final greetings, and he gives a greeting from Epaphras, saying, “Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends his greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured” (Col 4:12). Epaphras wrestled in prayer for others, so they would be strong in their faith. We can, and should, be wrestling in prayer for others like this. Here’s an idea, the new directories are coming out, why not make it a habit to use the directory in your prayer time. Perhaps each day include the people on a page of the directory, that they will stand firm in the will of God, that when trials come, they’ll be strong in their faith. Wrestle in prayer for yourself, and for others. A final way we might wrestle with God is in trying to understand God’s purpose. Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if we only knew what to expect, if we knew what was going to happen, and what our role in that was going to be? If you were ever a young mom, you know the feeling. When our first was just a baby, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t come with instruction manuals. We had so many questions, and not a clue as to the answers. You might read books and do all this research so that when the baby comes, you’re ready, you know just what to do. Then the baby comes and you realize that you don’t have a clue. Life is like that. Sometimes, when things are going really well, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on things. I feel that things have finally come together, life is good. Have you felt that way? You know what I’ve learned? That’s when I should be most afraid. Because that’s when I can expect something to happen. You know the saying, “It’s always calmest before the storm.” When things seem really good, really calm, it sometimes means a storm is coming. And I really think that a lot of the storms we face are due to our not understanding God’s purposes. Think back to Egypt, when God sent Moses to bring out the Israelites. God was trying to accomplish something for the Israelites, but they didn’t know what. Moses didn’t know what. And so, in Exodus 5:22-23, we see Moses crying out to the Lord, “O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” It took some time to convince Pharaoh to release the people, and in the time it took, things got much harder for them. They made bricks, and the quota for how much they had to make was steadily raised, they had to make more and more bricks. And then they took away the straw, they had to make more and more bricks each day, while gathering their own straw. The stress was building up, the Israelites couldn’t stand up much longer. But when they were finally released, they left with gifts and treasures, silver and gold, clothes for the trip, everything they would need. Exodus 12:35-36 tells us, “the Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold, and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.” God had a plan to provide for the Israelites during the Exodus. But they didn’t know what it was, so they really struggled to understand why those things were happening. God has a plan for you, too. Only we don’t always know what that plan is. If we can keep strong in our faith, if we can stand in God’s will, we will find a blessing. And it’s okay to wrestle with God, provided that wrestling leads to our righteous, we wrestle in prayer, and we seek an understanding of God’s purpose. I came across this little gem as I was looking putting together the notes and PowerPoint this week: “Until you’ve wrestled with God, you’ll not know the depth of His love. The power of His hand. Or the grace of His heart.
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