Wrestling with God

Date: 5/21/23

Sermon Title: Wrestling with God

Context: Genesis 32:22-30

(Gen 32:22) That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

(Gen 32:23) After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

(Gen 32:24) So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

(Gen 32:25) When 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.

(Gen 32:26) Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

(Gen 32:27) The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.

(Gen 32:28) 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."

(Gen 32:29) Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

(Gen 32:30) So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Preaching Note  

1. Wrestling for Greed

Abraham's son Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The two are twin brothers. Esau is the older brother, and Jacob is the younger brother. Jacob wanted to receive the blessing right of the firstborn, the right to inherit. Jacob's interest was the right of blessing and inheritance. So he tugs on his brother's heels, which get out of the stomach first. He wrestles with his brother. But while it's slippery, my older brother comes out first. Jacob fails at being his older brother. But Jacob doesn't give up. He continues his struggle to become his older brother. When the older brother is hungry, he replaces his brother with red bean porridge. Jacob disguises himself as Esau, his older brother, to deceive his father and receive his father's blessing for his interest, right of blessing, right of inheritance. However, it is revealed that he cheated on his father and older brother, and Esau tries to kill Jacob. Jacob runs away to the house of his uncle Laban. Jacob's wrestling to claim the blessing and inheritance ends in failure.

     Jacob loves his sister Rachel, one of his uncle's daughters. Jacob's interest is to marry the woman he loves and build a happy family. Jacob serves 7 years of slavery in order to marry the woman he loves. He's a real man. However, his uncle asks him to marry his older sister, Leah. Jacob, having married his older sister Leah, serves another seven years of slavery in order to marry his younger sister Rachel. He continues his struggle to marry the woman he loves. Eventually, Jacob marries Rachel. As Jacob secures his two daughters and a large fortune, his maternal uncle Laban tries to kill Jacob. Jacob makes a getaway with his wives in the middle of the night. Jacob's struggle to build a happy marriage with the woman he loves fails.

2. Wrestling with God

Jacob's daily interest in receiving blessings and inheritance fails. Even the daily concerns of a happy family life fail, and Jacob wanders through the wilderness and ends up by the Jabbok River (v. 22). Jacob sends his family first and is left alone (v. 23). The reason why Jacob remains alone is to seek God in order to seriously reflect on his past, which is stained with contradictions, mistakes, and failures.

     At this time, an angel of God seizes Jacob. A wrestling takes place (v. 24). God holds on to his struggling Jacob, who is serious about his life, sincere and doing his best. Jacob clings to God to the end. The angel of God struck Jacob on the hipbone (v. 25). A broken hip bone means that the source of a man's strength is broken. It means the root is broken. The Jacob of the past, the cowardice of deceiving his father and older brother for success and career, and the arrogance that comes from many families and wealth, all of these are events that break and collapse. Jacob clings to God, destroys his cowardly and arrogant self, and begins to build a new self.

     As the day was about to break, the angel of God asked to be let go, but Jacob refused to let him go unless he blessed him (v. 26). Jacob clings to God to the end. Because of this appearance, Professor Kim Igon calls Jacob a 'fighter'. “He was a fighter of life who struggled to live the life he was given earnestly and faithfully”. Paul Tillich called this 'ultimate interest'. The angel of God asks Jacob's name. Jacob proudly replies that his name is ‘Jacob’ (v. 27). He's not ashamed of his name.

     In the morning when the sun rises, the angel of God leaves and preaches the word of God. “Your name is Israel, not Jacob, because you have wrestled with God and have wrestled with men and have overcome” (v. 28). Jacob means ‘to hold on to the heel’. Jacob lived a life of trapping others in his own interests. Jacob also means ‘deception’. Jacob lived a life of deceit to serve his own interests. But now, after being captured by God, Jacob becomes a ‘New Being’ with the name ‘Israel’.