Take It to God!

Genesis 32:22-30

Martin Luther is a very interesting character. It is from this man that we get the name Lutheran from. But before Luther was Lutheran, he was a Catholic. And before he worked in the Catholic church, he was studying to be a lawyer. Now, how did this guy go from wanting to be a lawyer to being a minister of the gospel? What made him change his mind? Well, one day, as Luther was walking, he was caught in a storm. And the storm was so bad that Luther thought that he was going to die. And so he started praying. He prayed that if God were to save him from this storm, then he would become a monk. Now, I don’t know about you, but being a monk does not sound fun. See, some monks took vows of silence, meaning that they had to stay silent for long periods of time. And they were confined really only to the monastery. I don’t know how being a monk didn’t sound like being a prisoner. But Luther was so scared that he went from wanting to be a lawyer to being a monk. Is there anything that would terrify you enough to make you change careers? Or is there anything– or how terrified would you be if you were forced to change careers? See, the fear of the unknown is a real thing. And when we start thinking about things that could happen, we start thinking about all the bad things. And there we start to worry. We may get a little anxious. And in that, then we start to struggle. In our reading from Genesis, we see Jacob. Now, Jacob is one of the great patriarchs of the Old Testament. From the name change we read about, Jacob to Israel, we get the nation of Israel, the tribes of Israel. In fact, all of Jacob’s descendants will be known as the sons of Israel. Also, from his family, the Savior would be born. Now, that promise of the Savior being born from his family didn’t come without some trickery. You see, Jacob’s dad Isaac, had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Now, Esau was the outdoorsy manly man. And he was favored by Isaac. And Jacob was more of the homebody who tended to the garden. And he was favored by Rebecca, the mother. Now, I should say that God had said all along that the blessing would go to the younger brother, to Jacob. So God uses the trickery for good to still accomplish his will. And when it was time for Isaac to give up his blessing, his eyesight was failing him. So Rebecca came up with a plan. She came up with a plan and told Jacob, hey, if you put on an animal hide and cook your father a meal, then he will give you the blessing. Now, the reason that she had Jacob do this was because Esau was a very hairy man. So that’s why he had to wear an animal hide. And Esau often cooked his father some meals. So that’s why he cooked a meal. So everything went exactly how Rebecca thought it would. Jacob comes in, cooks him a meal. His father feels the animal hide. He thinks he’s talking to Esau. So when he’s thinking he’s talking to Esau, he ends up blessing Jacob instead of Esau. Now, Esau was furious. Esau was so mad that he didn’t get the blessing that he said that he wanted to kill Jacob. Now, Rebecca heard about this. And out of fear for her favorite son, she tells him to go to your Uncle Wavin’s house. He lives far away. And so, with Jacob out of the picture, then it might give Esau some time to pull off. So Jacob then goes to Uncle Wavin’s house. And there, he is blessed richly. He meets his future wives. He starts a family, and he becomes very wealthy. And after some years, God tells Jacob in a dream to go back and live in the land of your fathers. Now, Jacob had one problem with this. Esau lived in the land of his fathers. And the last thing that Esau had said to Jacob was that he was going to kill him. So Jacob was a little anxious about going back to Canaan. Now, Jacob had to take his entire household with him. Can you imagine how hard it would have been to move back then? See, Jacob didn’t just have his immediate family. He had all of his servants, his animals, everything he owned. And so Jacob is traveling from Uncle Laban back to Canaan. And they’re traveling in this big caravan. And so Jacob is at the back of the caravan. And Jacob, thinking that he might help ease the tension between him and his brother, he is sending gifts to the front so that the gifts would get to Esau before that Jacob would get to Esau. Now, yeah, that might have helped ease the tension. But there’s something that Jacob could have done that would have been way easier. Jacob could have just prayed to God. And earlier in the chapter, we do see a prayer from Jacob to God. But in the section we read about today, does it actually seem like Jacob believes that his prayer did anything? As Jacob is traveling, he sends his entire family across a river. And it’s just him left on the other side. Do you think that this was a smart play by Jacob? To be left alone? When you’re constantly thinking about the struggles that you’re about to have with your brother, thinking about what would happen, do you think that this was a smart play by Jacob? Do you think it’s best for him to be left alone with his thoughts? You see, when someone is anxious and they’re left alone with their thoughts, they just keep thinking and thinking and thinking. And those thoughts turn into anxious thoughts. And when they become anxious, then they start to feel helpless in their situation. Now, we might read this section, and we might think, Jacob, you have nothing to worry about. God is with you. I know that when I read this section, I think, Jacob, what are you crying about? But when I think that, I become a hypocrite. Because I don’t always pray to God. And when I do pray to God, I don’t always believe that my prayers actually do something. Like Jacob, I too feel alone. I let anxious thoughts get the better of me. Brothers and sisters, we too often are just like Jacob. But it’s not a bad thing being like Jacob. Because in chapter 31, when God tells Jacob to go back to the land of his fathers, God says, I will be with you. Next, we see Jacob wrestling with a man. And at first, we have no idea who this man is. We are given very little information about him. But given the context, we can know that this man is God. So we might think that it’s a little weird that God would answer Jacob’s prayers by wrestling with him. But God is all-knowing, and he knows the best way to answer our prayers. When God answers our prayers, it’s not like he answers them exactly how we want them to be answered. No, God is all-knowing, and he knows the best plan for us. See, God knew that Jacob wanted to be alone. So God visited Jacob to remind him that he’s never alone. Because we do not have a God who is far off and distant. No, we have a God who is near, a God who loves us deeply, a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to live a perfect life. And by his death on the cross, all of our guilt is taken away. If God has power over that, then he certainly has power over our daily struggles. So brothers and sisters, God is with us. In his love, he invites us to pray to him, casting all of our anxieties onto him. And do not be afraid over future events, because God hears our prayers, and he knows a plan that is best for us, a plan that sees us in heaven side by side with him. Now, a part of God’s plan for us is that he also blesses us. And we see how God has richly blessed Jacob. I mean, his family was so big that he had to camp in two separate camps. But when Jacob is wrestling with God, it seems that he forgets all of his blessings. He forgets that from the littlest thing to the biggest thing, those are blessings from God. Because when Jacob wrestles with God, he so desperately wants to be blessed by him. We too often forget that everything that we have is a blessing from God. And even in Jacob’s request for a blessing is a little weird. He says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. If you bless me, then I’ll let you go. God, if you do this one thing for me, then I’ll do this one thing for you. Did God need to do anything for Jacob? God is all-powerful. He certainly could have outwrestled Jacob. Jacob is acting like there’s something that he could do for God. We, too, propose an if-then statement to God. God, if you do this for us, then we will do this for you. But brothers and sisters, we are sinners. We do not deserve to stand in the presence of a holy God. We are sinners who try to bargain with God as if there’s anything that we can do for him. And we act like the blessings that he gives us mean nothing, including the blessing of his son, Jesus. We do not deserve the blessings that God gives us. But the awesome thing is, God blesses us anyway. You see, even though Jacob may have forgotten that he has been blessed by God, God still blesses him. God bless Jacob with a new name, Israel, because he is contented with God. God has contented for us. God has contented for us on the cross, and by his death on the cross, we are given the greatest blessing, eternal life. And this is not something that we work for, no. It is given by God. And God gives it freely to us. God doesn’t say, if you obey me, then I will bless you. No, he just blesses us. God has been gracious to us, and he continues to be gracious to us. He blesses us not because of anything that we have done, but because of his great love for us. And because of his great love for us, we are considered sinless, so that when we meet with God, we can be with God face to face, and we can thank him for all the blessings that he gives us. So, brothers and sisters, be thankful for the blessings that God has given us. Even though we do not deserve it, God still blesses us. And just as Jacob, like others, know that he met with God by renaming the place, I have seen God face to face. Let others know that our blessings come from God. Our blessings come from the one who blesses us now and forever. Brothers and sisters, I’m sorry to tell you, but there will be struggles in our life. But God is with us. God knows our struggles, and he knows the best way to deal with them. Let God contend, because God has contended for us on the cross, and because of this, we are blessed. We are blessed not because of anything we have done, but because of his love for us. Thanks be to God, the one who contends with our struggles and with our blessings. Amen.