this morning. Hi everyone. I was here this time last year. Did you know that? How many of you are here last year? Okay, most of you have to. But you don't remember me, right? Okay, I understand. People don't remember sermons from one week to the next much less what happened a year ago. But I'm glad to be with you again and I'm glad to see this church growing and I'm glad to see good things happening here and you know I do good a lot of churches and I often go back to the same church again and again and typically things aren't going so well to tell you the truth okay. So it's good and you should be very happy that things are going so well for your church here. It's a wonderful thing when you have a strong church and a church that's honoring to Christ and to his people like you have in this situation. It's rare and so you should be very happy for that. I want to look together this morning at Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32. Now for those of you who may not have known it, we have spent yesterday talking about the subject of the Holy Spirit. Well we're not going to do that this morning largely because in order to have made this morning happen we needed to have more of you here yesterday. How's that? So we're going to talk about that related to the issue that we've been talking about this whole weekend which has to do with our intimacy with God and our connection with God, our time with God, our awareness of God in our lives and in many ways that is what the Holy Spirit is for us. He is the presence of God among us and this passage that we're going to read is the passage that deals with the presence of God with his people. So if you take a look with me please that Genesis chapter 32 will begin with verse 22. Now this is God's word so it's probably a good idea to listen. That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maid servants and his eleven sons and crossed the port of the jabic. 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. 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. 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 Danielle saying, it is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared. The sun rose above him as he cast Danielle and he was limping because of this 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. They got at his rich blessings to the reading of his word. Let's pray together. For Jesus we come to you now because we call no one our teacher but you. We come to you now because we've just read a portion of your word that to our modern ear sounds so very strange and yet we believe this is your word even for us today. But we need you to teach. We need your spirit to open our eyes and to unstop our ears. We need your spirit to soften our hearts that we may see and hear you and that we may love you and serve you faithfully because of what you said. Would you please do that now and as you do we pledge this to you. We pledge to you our praise and our thanks. Amen. I have lots of childhood memories of things that my family and I did together and I think probably one of the things that sticks out in my early childhood memories around seven years old was a trip that we took from Rona, Virginia just up the road here to New York City. And we took several trips in fact during my childhood because my father worked for the Norfolk Western Railroad. Some of you know what that is and that meant we got three tickets on the train and so we would take the training to the Big Apple. We would do it maybe oh every other year for a number of years and some of you will remember some of your old enough to remember the 1964 World Sphere say yes okay and we went to that for example and we had several other times as well but of all the things on that World Sphere trip that I remember so well it wasn't the great unosphere that's still there in that spot outside New York City. It wasn't all those great civilians in the dinosaurs and the space ships and things like that that they had the World Sphere. The thing that I remember the most is going to watch the television show being made. And the name of the television show you remember this unless you're really old like me. The name of the television show was to tell the truth. How many of you remember to tell the truth? All right good you're old like me all right there you go sorry but for those of you that don't know let me tell you how to tell the truth that always start. It would always start with the stage dark and suddenly a spotlight would come on a player and the contestant would stand there in the spotlight and the announcer would say what is your name please and then the contestant would say well my name is John Smith then the stage would go dark again and a second spotlight would come onto a second player and the announcer would say what is your name please and then the contestant would say well my name is John Smith and the third contestant what is your name please my name is John Smith and the purpose of of the game was for a celebrity players to figure out who the real John Smith was, and you all remember that after he asked all these questions and you get the little x's as they vote for which one they think is really John Smith, that there was this great prize that was going to be had at the end of the show, right, either $50, $100, $150, or really up to $300, you know, now people in a million dollars on a game show, $300 was a lot of money back in those days. And so at the end of the show was this great tension because you've had all these fights in your family, as to who real John Smith is, the announcer finally says, will the real, remember how it goes, will the real John Smith please stand up, you know, and then the whole world breaks down to a plot, right, yeah, okay, and so I can remember that show because it's just so much a part of me and because I was so fascinated to see how it was made. A question that was asked at the beginning of that show, what is your name, please, it's an important question for us to consider this morning because it's a question that's asked in this passage, did you hear it? The man's name was Jacob and he was wrestling with someone and the question was asked of him, what is your name? Now you've got to understand that unlike today when people say their names or someone asked you what is your name, in the Bible they're not simply asking what's your mother call you or what's on your birth certificate, they're asking instead what's your character, who are you, what kind of person are you? And that's really the question that sort of governs this whole story of what kind of person are you, what is your name? Now before that question is asked of this man, Jacob, we have to remember what's going on in his life. Jacob had spent his whole life being very productive and doing all kinds of things in his life, but one of the big things he had done was he had stolen by deception, he had stolen the birth right of his older brother, Esau. He had defeated his father and he had tricked him into giving the family blessing and that meant the family money to him instead of his older brother. And because of this deception, Jacob had to run, he had to run for the hills, he had to run to Lebanon and Syria up north, he had to run away because his older brother was a tough guy and he was afraid of him. So he ran away and he spent many years away, while he was away he had found a wife, in fact he had found two wives, he had gotten all kinds of possessions, but now as we have coached this passage in Genesis 32, Jacob is on his way back home. And the really sad or tense thing about this chapter is, Jacob has just heard that his brother Esau is coming after him, he might have thought of for all those years, you know, all would be forgotten but apparently not because he hears Esau is coming and he's got an army with him and he's coming after you. So something very strange happens to Jacob at this moment. Listen again to verse 24, we see in verse 23 that Jacob sends his family across, he sends his possessions across and something happens in verse 24. So Jacob was left alone and a man rest over with him till David. To understand these poignant words, Jacob was left alone, you have to remember that Jacob was like you and me. He had filled his life with people and things. The last thing he wanted in his life was to be alone. Have you noticed how much that's true of you and me? Have you noticed that we are seldom alone, unless you're really strange and rare bird, he just basically don't like to be alone. And even when you are physically alone, like when you're in the car by yourself or you're at the house by yourself, because well you just weren't able to arrange things in the other way. What's the first thing most of us do, turn on the radio, turn on CD players, turn on Oprah, at least you have something going on in the background. We just seem to be the kinds of people who don't want to be alone anymore. And one of the ways we avoid being alone is to fill our lives with projects and tasks and duties and accomplishments, much like Jacob had done. Remember Jacob had spent his whole life getting things and acquiring relationships. He said his whole life is doing this, but now he had come to the time when he was absolutely alone. Now we know that he wasn't entirely alone, that is he wasn't just standing there going well where is everybody, instead something was happening at this river crossing, at this fort of the fabric. It says in verse 24, that a man wrestled with him. That passage could be translated, somebody wrestled with him. You see, it's really rather mysterious at this point in the story, it's who exactly who this person is. Now later on, we're going to discover, as Jacob did, that this was a very special person. Jacob actually says, I've seen God face to face and yet I live. So this is some kind of angelic, heavenly being that Jacob is wrestling with here at this spot. It's an encounter with God, that Jacob's about to have. In fact, what Jacob had done, all of his life was basically keep God off into the corner of his life, keep God over there by filling his life with projects, filling his life with relationships, filling his life with possessions, getting things, doing things, never being alone, so he keeps God into the corner. There's a very strange thing that happens in the Bible. In many ways, it seems as if the Bible goes through extremes in this way. Some of the most dramatic things that ever happen between God and people happen in big groups. You can think about it, you know, the people of Israel are around Mount Sinai and they're something really dramatic happens, or the big group at the Bay of Pentecost. When the big group is there, God does something really dramatically. That's one way which God seems to do things in a really dramatic way. But there's another way he does things dramatically. It's when we are alone with him. We look at every single thing that we've used to insulate us from dealing with the most important thing in life. We are the kinds of people. I know you because you're like me. We are the kinds of people who seem to fill our lives up with good things and seem to neglect the most important thing. But now I have some good news for you. If you're a child of God, if you love God and if God loves you, if you are a follower of the Savior, God doesn't let you continue to crowd him out of your life. He will bring circumstances into your life that will cause you to have to deal with the most important thing, and that is you and him. Just like Jacob, you see, Jacob had pushed God out, but God intervened and carved him to have to face and face to face, and the same thing happens to you and me. But let me tell you how it usually happens, this aloneness before God where you face to face with him. You have a choice really. You can choose to do it voluntarily or circumstances can just come and force you to do it. To do it voluntarily, I have to tell you, it's a lot more pleasant than to have to be forced into this. But to do it voluntarily means you've got to think about how you are crowding God out of your life, how you are pushing Jesus to the corner of your life and make him more central by spending time with him, by engaging him, by repending of sins, by confessing, by making yourself face to face with him. But if you don't do it, and if he loves you, if he cares about you, like he cares about Jacob, he'll just bring you to your knees. How does that happen? Well, sometimes it happens by losing a job. Sometimes it happens by an illness, sometimes it happens with wavered children, sometimes it happens by trouble in the church, whatever it may be, God, if he cares about you, will not let you continue for alone to be apart from him. So here's Jacob who's been running from God, running from face to face encounter, by filling his life with things and with people, and he now is left alone. Well what happens to him when he's alone, there's a wrestling match, a wrestling match. Now you have to be careful here, because this is not the world wrestling federation going on here. It's not as if Jacob has God in a half-meltzen or something like that, down on the mat. That's not the picture here, you have to get the picture. It's this wrestling that's going on, but this heavenly being, this representative of God touches Jacob's hip, strikes his hip, tears the tendons around the hip joint. And if you've ever injured your hip, some of you may have in football or maybe arthritis in your hip, that kind of thing, you know how very painful that can be. And so the picture here is one of Jacob wrestling with this angel, but Jacob is going down. And when the person says to him, let go of me, if daybreak is coming, and Jacob says, no, I will let go of you, it's not as if he's got him down on that, but it said Jacob is falling to the ground and Jacob is holding on for dear life. I won't let go of you. Listen, there's a conversation that takes place beginning in verse 26. Then the man said, let go of me for it is daybreak, but Jacob said, I will not let go of you unless you bless me. Jacob is desperate at this point. He has no hope as he gets ready to face his brother, except that God assure him of his blessing. Jacob's situation is like that, I think of many kindergarten children, the very first day of kindergarten. Some of you have just taken children to kindergarten for the very first time, or maybe first grade for the very first time. Now if your child was like me, it was like that's the best thing that ever happened for me. I'm finally out of the house. But for some children, it's not such a pleasant experience, that first day of kindergarten. And as mom gets ready to leave, you know there's always at least one child in the class who wraps both of her arms around mom's legs and both her legs around mom's legs, and it takes two or three adults, you know, the pool to kid off of mom. Why did children react that way? They are absolutely desperate. They are threatened by the classroom, and they only have hope in the fact that mom is there. And so they absolutely refuse to let go. That's what Jacob was doing. Jacob knew he could not fight his brother. Jacob knew he deserved to be destroyed for what he had done. Jacob understood his situation, and so he held on an absolute desperation.
Now I have a question for you. Where was the last time you held on to Jesus an absolute desperation? I mean, it's one thing for you to come to church and just say, you know, praise the Lord, you know, I need Jesus and I've got him and I'm happy. That's one thing, and we do that, and that's okay to do. But from time to time, there should be those moments in life when you just absolutely will not let go of him until you are utterly convinced that you have his blessing in your life. When is the last time you knew that you needed him that much? I'm afraid that very often what we do as Christians is we think to ourselves, well, you know, I'm saved and so everything's okay, and I just don't really need to be thinking very much about my relationship with Christ, and I don't really need to be that desperate about it all because in some ways that might even show that it'll have much faith. So let's just back up and take it easy. Well, we do need to take it easy in life, but there are those times in life when we realize that we need his blessing beyond anything else. What are those times? They are those times when you are facing trials, when you are facing troubles that are absolutely beyond your ability to manage. Now, I don't know about you, but for most of my life, I figure I can manage it. In fact, when I turned 40 years old, I thought, you know, I've made it. I've made it into heaven. All I've got to do now is just kind of hang in here and slide on in. I've worked real hard. I went to school, successful in my career. I'd raised my child to be a Christian. She was married. Everything just fine. You know, I've been married to the same person 25 years. No problem. You know, sure, I'm in. Then something happened. It's called a grandchild, and I can't manage that. I want her to come to Christ, and I can't control it. I want her to grow up like my daughter to serve faithfully, but I can't make it happen. I need somebody else to. Then something else starts happening. My back starts hurting. Oh, go on, my back's hurting. You know what that means? It means I can't do what I used to do, and I can't manage it anymore. Then I get ailing parents, and I can't manage that either. I can't manage my life anymore. So what do I need? Somebody to take care of it. That's what I need. And if events like that in your life and in my life, that drive us to Jesus where we wrap our fingers in his skirt and we hold on for dear life, and we say, I cannot. Let you go until I know that I have you on my side. Now are you so foolish, as to think, still that you can manage your life, that you can make it work out okay, then come to Jesus and put your fingers in his skirt and hold on for dear life, and say, I will not let go until you bless me. Well how did God react to Jacob? He looked at him and he said, well, what is your name? And Jacob, look what I can say, my name is Jacob. Now to understand that, he has to go back to Old Testament days because the main Jacob meant something. It meant Jack the rip off. That's what it meant. So when Jacob was born, he was a twin, and his older brother Esau came out first. But as Esau came out, Jacob didn't like this idea. But even coming out of his mother, Jacob was a rip off artist because what he did was he tried to grab the heel of his brother, he was holding on to Esau's heel as Esau came out, trying to pull him back in so he could get out first. And for this reason, his mother caught him, Jacob. Can you imagine naming your child, Jack the rip off, Jacob's snake? Hey, Jake the snake, get over here. That's what it was. And so when Jacob says my name is Jacob, he's not proud of that, because I've been this kind of person. I've been trying to manage my own life, to fill up my own life with things and with people. That's what I've been. But now Jacob, you see, has been stripped of all of that. And he's held on to God, and he said, I won't let go through you blessing me because I need your blessing more than anything else. And then God says, okay, now I'm going to bless you. Your name is no longer Jacob. Now your name is Israel. That treasured name that God's people have loved from that day for Israel. And why would a pastor tell us what the name Israel means? It says, your name will no longer be Jacob, verse 28, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. What does the name Israel mean? It means basically this, it means you win, you win. Isn't that what this is all about? Winning? You see in a world that threatens us with death and with suffering, we follow Christ because we know that only in him do we have any hope of winning. Winning what? Winning eternal life. Winning what? Winning the possession of the new world. Winning what? Winning our salvation. And Jacob now leaves the presence of God, limping, oh yeah, life isn't just sweet and perfect for it. He's still limping. But he leaves the presence of God having dealt with God face to face with a confidence, with a new confidence that he will win in the end. And so he can go face his brother, he can go face the trials of life, he can go face the difficulties of life because he has held on for dear life and has received the blessing of God. I don't know if you know anything about your future, but I'll tell you one thing that you can be confident of about your future, it's going to be hard, that you can be sure of. If there are going to be huge difficulties out there, and the only way, the only way to deal with those difficulties in life is to go into them knowing something. Do you know what you need to know? I am going to win, I don't know how, it doesn't look that way to me from a human point of view, but I know that in the end I'm going to win. There are people in this room who are going to suffer severely, suffer severely as they move toward death, you're going to become ill and you're going to have pain and you're going to suffer all the way to the point of death. How can you face such a thing as that? There are others of you here who are going to lose children. How can you face a thing like that? How can you look at people whom you love and adore and look at them suffer as a way that they are going to suffer? How can you possibly live through such a thing? There are some of you who are going to lose your jobs, lose everything you've ever worked for, your reputation, even your marriage. How can you possibly live through such a thing? The answer is only, only if you learn how to be alone with God and hold on for dear lives and receive the assurance of his blessing like Jacob did that day. And here are those words ringing in your ear. What is your name? My name is Jacob. I've been a sinner and then God's saying, that's not your name anymore. Now your name is you will win. So the question for you is this, what is your name? What is your character? What kind of person are you? Are you the kind of person that fills your life with possession and relationship to keep God in the corner or are you the kind of person that Jacob was? One who is alone with God, wrestles with God, and receives the blessings of a confident and a sure victory. Let's pray together. For Jesus, we confess to you that many times in life we push you to the side. We do. We push you to the side because we feel ourselves with other things. But we know that as life becomes more and more unmanageable and as we realize how ridiculous it is to try to win on our own, that we can have victory only through you. And so grant us the grace to come to you and to seek that victory from you. And as you give us that grace, we will honor you and we will praise you. Amen.