[Genesis 32.1_32] 2026.02.15 The God who wrestles
The God who wrestles
Genesis 32:1-32
When our faith in Christ leads us to a crisis, let’s tighten our grip on God who wrestles those whom he blesses.
Jacob’s trust in God leads to impending crisis
Jacob’s preparation for atonement
Jacob’s grip on the God who wrestles him
On Friday night, we had our Parish Council Meeting.
The Parish Council is the group of people in our Church who looks after the building and the infrastructure of the Church so that we can continue to meet here week after week.
It was the first meeting we had this year, and we were reminded of what happened just before Christmas.
As usual, Christmas was a busy time for the Church.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, I was told that the toilets at Church weren’t working.
That was hours before the Christmas eve service and the day before Christmas Day service.
We were expecting more people than usual and our toilets weren’t working.
It was something we didn’t need, on top of everything else that was happening.
Thankfully, Peter Li and Range got together and organised plumbers to come and fix it, just in time, otherwise it would’ve been a bad experience for our Church members and for members of the public.
I don’t know about you, but that’s often been my experience when we want to serve God.
When we want to obey God and do his will, there would often be unexpected turn of events that make it even harder to serve God, as if it hasn’t been hard enough.
As people who believe in God’s absolute control over all things, we know that these things only happen because God has allowed to happen.
And so, why does God allow these things to happen?
And what do we do when God seems to make our life even harder for following Jesus?
That’s what we’re going to explore today.
If you have your Bible there, please open up to Genesis 32:1-32.
We’ll see three things:
Jacob’s trust in God leads to impending crisis
Jacob’s preparation for atonement
Jacob’s grip on the God who wrestles him
Before we look into it, let’s pray, “Father, by every mean that you choose in your kindness and mercy, strengthen our faith in you today. For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
1. Jacob’s trust in God leads to impending crisis
Look with me at verse 1-2, “Jacob went on his way, and God’s angels met him. 2 When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called that place Mahanaim.”
Jacob was finally on his way home!
God had even sent angels to meet him.
Do you remember another time when Jacob saw the angels of God?
It was in chapter 28, when Jacob was escaping from Esau, and in a dream, Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on the stairway to heaven.
After he woke up, Jacob called that place Bethel, which means the House of God.
Here in chapter 32, as he was about to go back home, he saw angels again.
We don’t have a lot of description of the angels here, but Jacob saw this place as the camp of God.
He called that place Mahanaim, which literally means Two camps, because the camp of God and the camp of man were next to one another.
That’s a great sign!
However, rather than going straight into his homeland, on the other side of the Jordan River, Jacob sent a message to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the territory of Edom.
As you can see from the map, Seir wasn’t a stop that just so happened to be on Jacob’s journey back home.
Seir was a long way down south. Jacob had to go out of his way to send this message to his brother, Esau.
This was the same Esau that he was fleeing from the first place.
It would be like someone flying from overseas to Sydney to visit their family in Sydney but then decided that he needed to go and speak with someone from Melbourne first. From Sydney airport, Melbourne is not on the way to Hurstville.
But that’s what Jacob was doing; he wanted to send a message to Esau, who was a long way south in his home in the land of Seir, before settling back in his home, on his father’s land.
Why the detour? Because Jacob wanted to make things right with his brother first.
Jacob had taken advantage of Esau and stolen Esau’s blessings from him.
Jacob knew that he had wronged Esau and so even though he could’ve gone home without telling Esau, Jacob did the honourable thing.
Jacob wanted to do the right thing by making things right with Esau.
Jacob understood that part of what it means to follow God is to repair broken relationships.
Jacob ran away from his broken relationship with his brother, a relationship that he had messed up.
It’s a relationship that Esau also messed up as well.
But as Jacob grew in his trust of God, he took the initiative to try to resolve the issue with his brother.
Rather than running away from his brother, he went to reconcile with his brother.
This is the kind of reconciliation that Jesus talks about in Matthew 5:23-24, “So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift.”
Before you worship God, make sure you go and reconcile with your brother and sister.
In fact, don’t worship God until you have reconciled with your brother or sister.
That’s how much God wants us to value our relationship with our brothers and sisters.
That’s how much Jacob values his relationship with his brother Esau.
Jacob’s message was simple.
In summary, it’s like this, “Sorry for the delay. I was held up at Laban’s place. Please accept the gifts I’m about to send to you. Please accept me, Lord Esau.”
That’s a lovely and moving act from Jacob.
However, Esau’s reply was not what Jacob was expecting.
Look with me at verse 6, “When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you—and he has four hundred men with him.”
I wish the messengers had said more.
Was Esau happy or angry when he heard the message? Was he about to attack Jacob?
Or was he bringing four hundred men with him to welcome Jacob home?
Jacob was expecting the worst.
Four hundred men was like a small army.
After all, Jacob and Esau’s grandfather, Abraham, defeated four kings with 318 men.
If Esau decided to attack Jacob, Jacob wouldn’t stand a chance.
And so, Jacob divided his people into two camps, so that even if one camp was taken by Esau and his men, the other camp would at least have a chance to escape.
Jacob then prayed to God. He started off by addressing God and stating God’s command to him, in verse 9, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper,’
God had made a promise to Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, and Isaac, his father, and God had commanded Jacob to go back.
Jacob found himself in this position because of God’s promises and command.
Next, he recognised God’s goodness to him, “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. Indeed, I crossed over the Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two camps.”
Jacob recognised that it was completely out of God’s grace that he received any kindness, any faithfulness, anything from God at all.
He only had a staff when he crossed the Jordan the first time.
Now, as he was preparing to cross it again, he became two camps.
God’s given him a lot!
He then pleaded with God in verse 11, “Please rescue me from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children.”
God is a merciful and just God. Jacob pleaded with God to rescue him and to rescue the innocent mothers and children.
Finally, Jacob appealed to God’s promise again in verse 12, “You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to be counted.’”
God made a promise to make him and his children prosper, and so Jacob asked God to keep his promise.
Jacob was trusting in God’s promises and obeyed God’s command, but rather than a smooth journey, it was a journey that was heading towards a crisis.
Jacob wanted to do the right thing by trying to make things right with his brother Esau, but Jacob was terrified at the thought of Esau coming with four hundred men towards him, a small army that could easily destroy Jacob and every member of his family.
This often happens when we put our trust in Jesus.
There will be times when we have read the Bible, when we have sought God’s will, when we have prayed many prayers, when we place our trust in Jesus rather than ourselves, only to find that life becomes harder, not easier.
Like Jacob, we make difficult but right decisions to reconcile, knowing that that’s what God wants, only to find the person we’re trying to reconcile with, seems to turn against you instead of turning towards you.
We want to do the right thing, but things don’t always turn out right, things don’t turn out according to how we’ve planned it.
However, trusting God’s promises and commandments is always right, even when things don’t always feel alright.
I’m thankful that our Chinese-speaking brothers and sisters here have a heart to support our English-speaking, often younger, brothers and sisters.
That’s not always the case in churches.
I’ve been to churches where it’s very hard to get support from one congregation for another, especially if they are from a different culture.
I remember starting one with Jenny many years ago called Junior Worship.
Under God, it grew, but it was hard work and we didn’t have a lot of support.
We knew it was the right thing to do, even though it was hard at the time.
We didn’t know at that time, but we were training two young men who would become ministers one day, and one other who would write professional Christian songs.
Are there right but difficult things that God’s calling you to do now?
Would you keep trusting in God, even if what he’s asking you to do may very well lead to a crisis?
When your trust in Jesus leads you to a crisis, come before him in prayer and appeal to God’s promises.
God has promised to be with those who trust in him.
Ask God to show you how he will lead you through your crisis.
2. Jacob’s preparation for atonement
Jacob wasted no time preparing for his meeting with Esau. He got up at night and prepared the following animals to give to Esau.
And now, for all the children and adults, it’s time to put on your thinking caps again. Let’s see if you can count two things. Firstly, listen and count how many kinds of animals Jacob was preparing for Esau. Secondly, count how many animals he’s preparing. Ready?
Starting from verse 14, “Two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty-milk camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys. 16 He entrusted them to his slaves as separate herds and said to them, “Go on ahead of me, and leave some distance between the herds.”
How many types of animals? Five types: goats, sheep, camels, cows, and donkeys. How many animals? 550. That’s a lot of animals!
Jacob also asked the people to leave some distance between the herds.
He was hoping to extend the time of the presentation for as long as possible, to give Esau plenty of time to see the extent of Jacob’s gifts and to also perhaps delay Jacob’s face-to-face meeting for as long as possible.
Each time the different animals pass by, Jacob’s servants were to say that these are gifts from Jacob to Esau and that Jacob wasn’t far behind.
Listen to what Jacob wanted to achieve by doing this, in verse 20, “You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’”
For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”
Jacob wanted to appease Esau.
To appease means to make a person who was wronged, usually a superior, like a boss, a king, or even a god, happy, hopefully.
In the Bible, the same word is often translated as the word atonement.
The word is also used in the laws of Moses to describe that God’s people must make a sacrifice of atonement for their sins, for they have wronged God.
They sacrifice an atonement sacrifice to appease God, to ask God to take his anger away from them.
And so, you get a sense of how important Esau’s forgiveness was for Jacob.
The language that Jacob used was very reverent, language that could be used to describe man’s relationship with God.
Jacob gave animals as a gift of atonement to his brother Esau, to seek his forgiveness.
The ancient Israelites presented atonement sacrifices to God, to seek his forgiveness.
The very concept of atonement finds its fulfilment in the death of Jesus Christ.
This is what the Bible says in 1 John 2:2, “He (Jesus) himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.”
Jesus is our atoning sacrifice for our sins, so that through Jesus, we might be forgiven.
The difference between Jesus and the other atonement sacrifices is that unlike Jacob and the Israelites, who provided their own animals, it’s God himself who provided the atonement sacrifice for our sins.
While Jacob didn’t see Esau as God, he knew that it was vital for him to be forgiven by his brother.
It was vital that he was at peace with his brother.
And so, Jacob made abundant preparation to make peace with his brother.
It was vital to make peace with his brother because being at peace with God requires him to be at peace with his brother.
This is true for us today.
If we want to be at peace with God, we must be prepared to give sacrificially to make peace with our brothers and sisters.
Again, from 1 John, this time in chapter 4:20-21, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.
For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.”
You can’t say that you love God unless you love your brothers and sisters. You simply can’t.
But if you love God, you will do all that you can to love your brothers and sisters, and you’ll give sacrificially to make that happen.
Last week, we began a new group at Church called ATONED.
It’s for young and younger adults.
It’s called atoned because we want to be a group who are at one with one another.
In fact, the English word Atone was made up by the English translators of the Bible.
Before the English translation of the Bible, the word “Atone” was not in the English language.
To translate the idea of atone from the Bible, the English translators had to make up the word Atone, which is two words “at” and “one” combined in one word, “Atone”.
It’s the idea that though God and men were separate, they were made “one” by the atonement sacrifice. God and man are now “At” “One”.
That’s what we want all of our Christian relationships to be, “At” “One”, because we’re now “At” “One”, or atoned, by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And so come to ATONED, if you’re a young or a younger adult. When do we meet? “At” “One”pm.
But more important than that, if you have been made ‘atone’ with God by the blood of Jesus, make every effort to be “atone” with other brothers and sisters.
The love of Christ demands your love for your brothers and sisters.
3. Jacob’s grip on the God who wrestles him
And so, Jacob sent his gifts to Esau across the river.
He also got up in the middle of the night to take his family across the river at the fords of Jabbok.
He took his whole family and all of his possessions across the river in the middle of the night, but he stayed behind and was left alone.
In the middle of the night, a man seemed to have suddenly appeared and wrestled with Jacob until daybreak.
Does anyone watch wrestling? The Bible doesn’t tell us what kind of wrestling that was happening here.
It’s probably not the kind of wrestling you see a lot on TV in the fighting ring.
Whatever type of wrestling that Jacob and the man were using, it would’ve had a similar outcome.
The two were wrestling to bring down their opponent.
Now remember, Jacob had no idea who this person was.
He was a stranger who came to wrestle him in the middle of the night.
For all Jacob knew, he was in the fight for his life. They were wrestling for a long time, until the break of day.
When daylight was approaching and the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck Jacob’s hip socket and dislocated his hip.
This man was strong, superhuman strong.
Jacob was tired and injured. He should give up. He should retire. It was too much for him.
That’s what the man thought as well. Look with me at verse 26, ‘Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”’
Jacob knew that this was an extraordinary encounter, even a supernatural encounter.
Joseph had always wanted to be blessed and he wasn’t going to let this supernatural encounter pass by without being blessed by his possibly supernatural opponent.
Look with me at verses 27-30, ‘“What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied. “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.’ Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”
Who was this man that Jacob was wrestling with?
In Hosea 12:4 we read the Bible’s interpretation of what happened, ‘Jacob struggled with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favour. He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with him.’
God sent an angel to wrestle with Jacob.
The angel represented God, and so in a very real sense Jacob was wrestling with God.
And it wasn’t Jacob who decided to wrestle with God; it was God who initiated the wrestle with Jacob.
God wanted to wrestle with Jacob, to make Jacob struggle with him.
Why would God do that?
Wasn’t Jacob already under enough stress? Didn’t Jacob already have enough, more than enough, to deal with?
Why would God make Jacob struggle with him, in one of Jacob’s loneliest and most stressful times?
It was precisely in Jacob’s most stressful time, and most lonely time, that God gave Jacob what he needed the most.
In this instance, it wasn’t words of comfort, it wasn’t even superhuman strength.
It was Jacob’s recognition that he needed to hold on to God even more.
In his time of stress, Jacob needed to fasten his grip on God even more, and not let God go until God does what he promised.
What Jacob needed was a determination to want God’s blessings above all else, even if it means losing all the other blessings God’s given him so far.
Ever since Jacob was born, he had struggled and wrestled.
He wrestled with his brother Esau inside their mother’s womb, he held on to Esau’s heel even at birth, he struggled against his father, he struggled against his father-in-law, and now he struggled and wrestled with God.
His whole life was a struggle, but he refused to give up.
In his wrestle with God, he wasn’t holding on because he wanted to overcome God.
He was holding on to God out of desperation, he was holding on for his dear life, not letting go of God until God’s done as he’s promised.
What was the blessing that God gave him?
A new name.
He was no longer to be called Jacob, the one who grabbed the heel, the one who cheated, the one who lied.
From now on, he would now be known as Israel, the one who struggled with God and men and overcame.
This new name would signal a new identity, a new meaning in his life.
He would struggle with God and man, and he would prevail.
Of course, God could’ve overpowered him easily from the beginning.
All God needed to do was to touch his hip, and it would’ve been all over for Jacob.
However, God, in his mercy, allowed Jacob to struggle with him so that his trust in God would grow.
There will be times in a Christian’s life when life will be hard, and we start to wonder whether we’ve got what it takes to continue.
There would be times when our faith is tested and we struggle with doubt and fears.
We know that God can absolutely make life easier, or at least make the difficulties in life less difficult, but he doesn’t.
We wonder when he’s going to send words of comfort or some supernatural strength to help us through.
When those times come, don’t despair, don’t give up, but keep wrestling with God in prayer.
Bring your doubt and your fears to him, bring your weaknesses and your frustrations before him.
For it’s often in those times of hardship, in those times of vulnerability, that God blesses us by making us trust him even more, and to tighten our grip on him a little more.
After Jacob’s wrestle with God, he walked away with a limp.
He was injured and suffered a permanent injury because of his wrestle with God.
In our wrestle with God, we may walk away with an injury, we might walk away with a scar.
We may walk away with a memory, a hurt, a pain, that we have to live with, for a very long time.
And yet, don’t despair over these scars, for they remind us that God’s strength is shown through our weaknesses, including our scars.
Jesus himself struggled on the night before he died on the cross.
Jesus wasn’t doubting God but was struggling to face the terror of God’s judgement not for his sins, for he has none, but for the sins of the whole world. Jesus himself had a very hard time praying to God on that night.
But thanks be to God! Jesus prevailed!
He overcame his struggles and was nailed to the cross.
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.
However, to help his disciples believe that it was really him, Jesus showed them his scars.
Jesus, who could’ve healed himself, but kept his scars.
Don’t be afraid of the injuries and the scars that you endure in your struggles with God and man.
They are reminders of how God blesses you and transforms you to be more like Jesus Christ, who’s known by his scars.
What do we do when God seems to make our life even harder for following Jesus?
Hold on to God even harder, and don’t ever let go, until God does what he’s promised.
When our faith in Christ leads us to a crisis, let’s tighten our grip on God who wrestles those whom he blesses.
Here are three questions for us to discuss in our Growth groups:
What’s the hardest thing you must face today as you follow Jesus?
What cost have you prepared to pay to follow Jesus?
How is God wrestling with you / disciplining you in your life right now?
When our faith in Christ leads us to a crisis, let’s tighten our grip on God who wrestles those whom he blesses.
Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for calling us to be yours. Thank you that in Jesus Christ, you have paid for our sins. Even though our sins are like scarlet, you have washed them away so that we’re as white as snow. Thank you that you yourself have paid the atonement for our sin in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, as you lead, please let us choose your way, even when it’s difficult. Please help us choose your ways even when things get increasingly difficult, to the point of despair. Father, in those times of weaknesses and vulnerability, come to us, and in your love, wrestle with us, and remind us to keep holding on to you, Let us never lose our grip on you, the One who would never let us go. For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”