Genesis 28, Jacob left Bersheba and went toward Haran, and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set and taking one of the stones of the place. He put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep, and he dreamed. And behold, there was a ladder set on the earth, and the top of it reached heaven. And behold the angels of God were ascending and descending on it, and behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham and your Father and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and 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 the north and the south, and in you and your offspring shall all of the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you. And Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it, and he was afraid, and he said, how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And then when he returns to the land in chapter 32, Jacob said, oh God of my Father, Abraham and God of my Father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, return to your country, until your kindred that I may do good, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For only with my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps, please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, where I fear him that he may come and attack me and the mothers with the children. But you said, I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for a multitude. And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day, and when the man saw that he had not prevailed against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. And then the man said, let me go, for the day has broken. And Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me, and he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob, and then he said, your name, shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed, and then Jacob asking, please tell me your name, but he said, why is it that you ask my name? And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place penile saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered, the Word of the Lord. As Jacob starts his 500 mile journey, for the first time in his life he is alone. He has no friends, no family, he is totally alone. He has stopped at this place that became known as Bethel, a mountaintop in which he stops because night has come, and he pulls up a stone to put as his pillow, and he lays down. And God appears to Jacob in a dream. This dream we learn many things, but three things are very critical for us to grasp. Number one, God reveals a ladder, and the Word really is more of a staircase, because in those days they weren't that proficient at big ladders, but he would often see temples where there were what we call ziggarots with steps that went up high, and that was to get up close to God. And he sees that this staircase is lowered down from heaven and touches earth, and on it angels are both ascending and descending, very easy to see that this is a spiritual communication that is to go on between heaven and between earth. Angels are always the messengers of God and the protectors of God's people, and God wants Jacob to know that he is desiring to communicate with him. By God reaffirms his covenant plan to bless the entire earth through this family, living in this place that God has chosen to begin his great plan. And thirdly, God assures Jacob personally that he will be with him, that he will protect him and bring him back to the land, as he said, I will not leave you. Now Jacob, as he wakes, realizes, truly God has actually spoken to him, and he says, this place, this is the gate of heaven, and God has revealed himself personally to me. Jacob made a vow at that point, passage that we didn't read it all, but he says, oh, God, if you do protect me, if you do bring me back to this land, then in all that you blessed me and prosper me. I will give a tent to you, and once in Jacob is kind of manipulating God there a little bit. But then he goes to his father's family in Iran, and he ends up with two wives due to the trickery of Laban, and eventually has twelve sons and one daughter. Jacob begins even to trick Laban, as I said, to bless his own flocks, and now Jacob Laban is very disfavorable toward him, and so Jacob flees that promised land and is now coming back. And so now we have the second part of the story, this most unusual story. Jacob literally jumps out of one set of problems of wrestling with deceit, with his father-in-law, and now in his return, he learns that Esau knows he's coming back, and Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred armed men, and Jacob is panicked. He is panicked. He sends all kinds of gifts to appease his brother, but his brother keeps marching toward him. He then divides his family into two camps, hoping that at least some of them will be spared and he makes them go across the river, and now he is alone by himself and night falls again. And in the darkness of that night, suddenly a man reaches out and grabs him and rustles him to the ground. And Jacob, because there's Esau, no response, is this some assassin that Esau has set? There's nothing, simply wrestling, wrestling, wrestling. We don't know how long it went on, but we're told it went on through the night. Jacob's beginning to realize something is different with this. No matter what move he makes, the other man counters his move. And they continue to wrestle until finally the man speaks and says, Jacob, it's daybreak. Let's go, let's go, give up. And Jacob then realizes something is incredible here because this man with a free hand at the moment simply reaches over and touches Jacob's hip, and it is thrown completely out of socket. If you ever had the pain of a shoulder pushed out of socket or a hip pushed out of socket, incredible pain. And every wrestler knows that all of your strength is in your legs and your hips. And now all he can do is just hang on to the man and hold on to this man and he's realizing that something is greater here than just a man. And he begs the man to bless him, please, please bless me because he's realizing something is greater than himself and that he is not going to win this battle. Jacob struggling, hanging on, looking for what happens going to happen to him next, and he clings with all of his worth to him. And now the man asks a question. He says, what is your name and what does that have to do with Jacob's request for a blessing, everything, everything? Because Jacob now has to tell him, I am Jacob, the deceiver. Jacob, you see, had been fearful of Esau, but his fear was misplaced because his greatest fear should have been that he's been deceiving and that man says to him, you will no longer be called Jacob, but instead you will be called Israel, for you have wrestled with God, you have wrestled with God and with man. And you have prevailed, Ishra means to prevail, Al means God, Ishra El. He who prevails with God. He who sticks with God. He who holds on to God for dear life. And Jacob begs then to know the name of the man, who simply says why, as if you should know. And then it says he blessed him and he blessed him in such a way that then Jacob makes this statement in awe and he says, I have seen God face to face and my life has been spared. This is one of those pre incarnate appearances of Jesus Christ and which he has wrestled with this man. And now the story simply says Jacob limps off to meet Esau, so what does all of this mean? Whenever you read something in scripture, you always ask the simple question, why is this here? If it weren't here, what would I be missing? I think several things. Number one, in the dream, the Lord assures Jacob that he will be with him, that he will protect him and that the great covenant promise belongs to him, just like it had belonged to his grandfather, Abraham, and his father, Isaac. No, Jacob, now this promise is yours, it belongs to you. And instead of coming to him solely in a dream, Jacob now finds that God becomes flesh and comes and wrestles with him and makes the promise personal and real. The Jacob had to come to the end of his pride. He had out, maneuvered and deceived everyone in his life up until this point and he finally got to a point to realize this is someone I'm not going to be able to out wrestle, or only when he discovered that he could not outdo God, that he realized how weak he truly was. And it was demonstrated to him by God touching his hip supernaturally and making him limp. And so he simply clings and holds on and asks God to bless him. Jacob had prayed to be delivered from Esau, but he first needed to be delivered from himself. And that is why God let him wrestle as long as he did until he had no more strength. This, Jesus could have easily defeated him, could have even killed him if he wanted to. And yet he let Jacob wrestle until he could wrestle no more. And then he clung to him and he sought the grace of God. I need your blessing. He ceased being self-efficient and at that moment became God dependent, which is what all of the wrestling was about. And that's why God says to him, now you're ready to be Israel. Because Israel is what I want you to be. Israel to prevail through God by holding on to God. That's how you become strong. Because when you hold on to God, there's where you find your strength. You have prevailed with me rightly now to receive my blessing. So now you can carry out your role in this great new covenant promise of God. Only when Jacob realized that he was truly weak, that he find strength. And it was in the grace of God. So what does this mean to you and me? I think first of all, this God offers you the same promise. God offers you and calls you to come into his great plans, to be a part of reaching this whole world, to be a blessing to all of the families of the earth. God calls you to be a part of that. And he promises to bring you, no matter what you go through, no matter how long you have to go through it, he promises to bring you back to the place of blessing because he's already given us that blessing in his word, if you will yield to him and his plan for you. And then lastly, when you acknowledge that you cannot do it, when you acknowledge that whatever is bringing you fear, whatever is bringing you an obstacle, whatever is causing you to struggle, God is saying, stand on my promises. I will be with you. I will bring you back. I will be the one who will fulfill my promise through you. And that's when you see God prevail. And you understand what then Paul reminds us of in the New Testament that Christ became weak so that we could be strong, that Christ became poor so that we could be rich with his strength, because everything we accomplish that counts for the kingdom of God must be done in the strength of God. He uses us and all that we have to offer him, but we offer it to him in faith and trust him, and he uses it in ways that sometimes we are not even aware. Jacob had no idea of the role that he played in the plan of God, but God did. You may not have an idea of the role that you play in the plan of God, but God does. He's brought you into the plan because he has a plan for you. He's brought you into this great journey with him because he wants to do something through you, whether you ever know it or not. And we know it now because of the words that have been written about him. And you will know it one day because the same text is being written about your life. Christ humbled himself and obedient to the Father who then exalted him and raised him in strength on high. Your strength is found through your weakness because there you will discover the grace of God. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Nothing is left up to us. You have simply called us to enter into your strength. And then we find that you bless us and you bless us in ways we never dreamed because you are so good. And when we answer the two great questions of life, oh God, are you sovereign? Yes, oh Father, then we must answer, are you good? Yes, Father, you are good. Then trust me, lean on my strength, let my grace flow through you to accomplish much for my kingdom. And you will see in the end the beauty of weakness and the greatness of strength in Christ's name and we pray. Amen.