Wrestling with God

Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.

Wrestling with God

Genesis 32:22–32

Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ.

I would like to thank the Lord for the privilege to share God’s Word with you. I would like to thank the leaders for this opportunity, and also all of you for your prayers and words of encouragement. Many of you sent me text messages saying that you are praying for me, and they are very much appreciated.

The passage for our consideration today is taken from the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 32. May I invite you all to turn with me to Genesis 32, reading from verse 22. I will be reading from the New King James Version.

“And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.

Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, ‘Let Me go, for the day breaks.’

But he said, ‘I will not let You go unless You bless me!’

So He said to him, ‘What is your name?’

He said, ‘Jacob.’

And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’

Then Jacob asked, saying, ‘Tell me Your name, I pray.’

And He said, ‘Why is it that you ask about My name?’ And He blessed him there.

So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’ Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.”
—Genesis 32:22–32

May the Lord bless the public reading of His precious Word.

Shall we commit the time to the Lord in prayer?

Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You for this wonderful morning, that we can be reminded of Your holiness. We are reminded again of who You are, and also who we are as we come before You. We recognize that as sinful men and women, there is no way that we can come close to You. But because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, we are now accepted before You, and our worship is acceptable to You.

Lord, now as we look into Your Word, we humble ourselves before it and seek Your Spirit’s leading as we look into it. May Your Spirit teach us from Your Word, that we may take it to heart and live a life that is pleasing to You. We commit the time into Your hands. We pray all this in the name of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Introduction: A Wrestling Match in the Bible

I first came across this passage when I was in secondary school. Back then there was a certain craze going on among some of my friends. I am not sure if you know about it. It is called World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE for short.

Initially I did not know what it was, but since my friends kept talking about it, I decided to check it out. That was my first encounter with the world of wrestling. So you have big muscular men with colorful names doing fancy stunts at each other. I would not say it was my type of entertainment, but you can imagine how intrigued I was when I came to know that there was also an actual wrestling match recorded in the Bible, and it was a wrestling match between God and Jacob.

Now, mind you, it was only much later that I found out that wrestling is also an Olympic sport, and it looked nothing like what I saw in the WWE. So I presume that the wrestling match recorded here in Genesis 32 is closer to the Olympic style of wrestling than the WWE, else it would be rather amusing, I think.

Well, regardless of what type of wrestling it was, do you not find this whole incident rather interesting? A human being actually managed to wrestle with God. There are so many questions that I want to ask.

Did Jacob really wrestle with God? And if yes, why did he do that? What was Jacob even thinking about? And with all fights, the most common question that people usually ask is, who started it?

To find the answer to these questions, we need first to backtrack a little to where it all started.

1. The Background to the Wrestling Match

In the previous chapter, in Genesis 31:3, we see that God commanded Jacob to return to his homeland. Jacob had previously been living with his uncle Laban for a good twenty years. During that time, he married Laban’s two daughters and gained much livestock. Life was pretty good for Jacob. However, it was not God’s plan for Jacob to remain in the land where Laban lived, for that was not the land God promised Jacob’s forefathers. And so, when the time was right, God instructed Jacob to leave his uncle Laban.

Jacob obeyed and started to make his way back, taking everything he had with him.

There was, however, a problem. Returning home would mean that Jacob would have to meet his nemesis, his brother Esau. Most of you will probably know the reason why Jacob was living with Laban in the first place: it was because he was running away from his brother. Esau wanted to kill Jacob because Jacob stole his blessing from their father Isaac.

Well, twenty years had passed since then, and Jacob was now on his way to meet his brother once again.

Naturally, Jacob made preparations. We see in Genesis 32:3 that Jacob first sent messengers to inform his brother Esau of his return. But to his horror, the messengers came back with news that Esau, together with four hundred men, was on the way to meet him.

Distraught by the news, Jacob prayed to the Lord for help, asking for His protection and deliverance. But as we all know, what is Jacob without his schemes? So even though Jacob sought help from the Lord, he still went on to prepare a lavish gift for Esau and had it sent ahead of him, with hope to appease his brother. He then divided the rest of his possessions into batches so that they could go before him and act as his vanguard, or shield.

Now after sending the last batch away, which also included his family, night fell, and Jacob was left all alone by himself in the middle of nowhere. There was no longer anything Jacob could rely on, no one he could turn to. And that was when Someone came along and wrestled with Jacob.

2. Who Wrestled with Jacob?

We are told in verse 24, in the passage that we just read, that this Someone who wrestled with Jacob was “a Man.” We are also told that the wrestling match lasted throughout the night. But as the morning drew near, this ordinary Man did something extraordinary. With one touch, the Man dislocated Jacob’s hip and made him a cripple. Even with this handicap, Jacob still would not let the Man go unless he received a blessing from Him.

So after the Man blessed Jacob and left, Jacob called the place Peniel, which means “face of God,” because Jacob recognized that he had just seen God face to face, and yet lived.

Well, at this point, I think we can more or less figure out the identity of the Person who wrestled with Jacob. Verily, He was God, yet also in the form of a Man. It is therefore not surprising that some commentators believe that the Person who wrestled with Jacob was none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. Yet His identity was kept a mystery throughout the Old Testament, for the time of His revealing had not yet come. So perhaps this also explains why the Man refused to tell Jacob His name, despite Jacob desiring to know.

This made me realize just how privileged we are to be New Testament saints. Yes, Jacob may be the only person in the Old Testament who managed to come that close to God, to the point of touching Him, but we actually have the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in each and every one of us. What a privilege.

3. Why Did Jacob Wrestle with God?

So why did Jacob wrestle with God?

I like to think that Jacob all along knew who he was wrestling with, because it makes no sense to me for Jacob to wrestle with a complete random stranger for no reason. But what was his purpose then? If all Jacob wanted was God’s blessing, he could have just asked, and God would gladly bless him. Why go through the trouble of wrestling for it?

I think the answer is found in the very act of wrestling. You see, in wrestling, your main objective is not to knock the opponent out, but to dominate over him so that he gives up and yields to you. If the opponent is not one who yields easily, the match will drag on until one party gives up, much like the case here.

Jacob wrestled with God because he wanted God to yield to him. He wanted to muscle God into doing his will.

Even though he obeyed God’s instruction to return to his homeland, Jacob wanted to do it in his own way. Instead of committing the whole situation to God, Jacob set an elaborate plan in motion, yet at the same time asking God to protect and bless him. Do you not find that ironic?

I realize that I sometimes do the same—wanting to do things in my own way, but worrying that it may not work. Yet instead of surrendering it to the Lord, I pray double hard to God, hoping that God will make it work. We humans are sometimes quite confusing, are we not?

But what is more puzzling to me is the fact that God was willing to entertain Jacob for the entire night. God could have easily ended the wrestling match if He wanted to. And not just that—God knew what was in Jacob’s heart. He knew that the reason why Jacob was wrestling with Him was because Jacob wanted to bend God into doing his own will. So why did God put up with Jacob?

I like to think that God saw something of value in Jacob.

4. What God Saw in Jacob

You see, in order to dominate your opponent when you wrestle with him, you need first to go close to your opponent and grab hold of him. In wanting to bend God to do his own will, Jacob had to grab hold of God. Jacob held on to God throughout the entire night and continued to do so even when he knew he did not have a chance of winning. Jacob did not let go.

And it was not just for that night.

If you look back at Jacob’s life, you will notice that while Jacob used all kinds of means and methods to get what he wanted, he never turned away from God, nor desired anything of this world, unlike his brother Esau.

You remember the birthright incident between Esau and Jacob. Of all the things that Jacob could ask Esau for, he asked for his birthright. In the eyes of the world, that would be a foolish exchange, a losing transaction. Why ask for something that has no apparent value at all? I mean, it is just a title, right? Though I should not be saying that—even Esau saw more value in that bowl of soup than his birthright.

But Jacob saw it differently. Jacob recognized that the birthright was something valuable, a blessing that only God could give. Even though it might not bring him any earthly gain, Jacob desired to have it. Anything that was from God, Jacob wanted.

The same goes for the blessing from his father Isaac. If you think about it, the blessings that Isaac gave were just mere words. It was not as if Isaac was dividing his inheritance between his two sons. But Jacob wanted it nonetheless, to the point of tricking his father for it, because he knew those blessings mattered to God.

But that is not all. Let me give you another example. Jacob would rather work for fourteen years to get a wife who was from his own people than follow his brother Esau’s footsteps in getting a wife from the land of Canaan. Why is that so? Well, we are told that Jacob was in love with the woman he wanted, but I think it was also because when Jacob left his father Isaac to flee from Esau, Isaac blessed Jacob and charged him to get a wife from the house of Laban. Even if it might be easier for Jacob to get a wife from the land of Canaan, Jacob would not do that, because he wanted the blessings that were given to him by his father.

And finally, we have this wrestling incident. Is it not surprising that Jacob did not ask God to deliver him from the hand of his brother Esau? After all, that was the most pressing matter. Instead, Jacob asked God to bless him.

Now God did bless him—not with riches, fame, good health, or protection, but with a change of his name. Now if you were Jacob, would you be happy with that blessing—a change of name?

But it was not just a simple name change. God was giving Jacob a new identity.

The name Jacob means “supplanter.” He was given this name by his parents because he held on to his brother’s heel when he came out of his mother’s womb. It was in Jacob’s nature to scheme and to seize the things that he wanted since the day he was born. But God was about to change that by giving him a new name, a new identity.

The name Israel means “prince with God”—from one who struggled and prevailed against God and men, to one who will go forth to do the will of the Lord. And that was exactly what the nation of Israel was all about. They were God’s chosen people, chosen to do His will and to display His glory to the world.

This was actually a tremendous blessing to Jacob, one that goes far beyond what this world could ever give.

5. What Do We Value?

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, at this point I would like to ask you a few questions.

What are the things that are of value to you? What are the things that you will even fight for? Are those things of value to God? From whom are you seeking your blessings? Is it from the world, or is it from God?

Jacob was far from being a man of God. His actions were not just questionable; they were sometimes outright wrong. But because he clung onto God and never let Him go, God was glad to have fellowship with him. God would rather that we expend our energy to get what we want from Him than to get what we want from the world. Therefore, we should not turn away from Him, because there is no better person to turn to than the Lord.

6. Wrestling with God and Prayer

Now Hosea’s account of this incident in Hosea 12:2–4 likens Jacob’s wrestling with God to prayer, and I find the comparison very fitting.

Firstly, Jacob’s deliberate attempt to send all that he had away from him before he wrestled with God reminded me of Matthew 6:6: “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

The tenacity that Jacob displayed as he wrestled with God reminded me of the many verses in the Bible that teach us how we ought to pray always and not lose heart. Just like the parable of the widow who kept pestering the judge and finally got what she wanted, Jacob too got what he wanted after he wrestled with God for the entire night. Jacob was not going to pass on such an opportunity, even though there was a chance of him losing his life.

Beloved, we have this privilege to come before the throne of grace as often as we can, without the fear of being consumed. When was the last time we labored with God in prayer? When was the last time we withdrew ourselves into our secret place and wrestled with God in prayer throughout the night?

It could be for anything. It could be for the job that you always wanted, or the girl or guy you wanted to marry. It could also be for the salvation of a loved one, or for the wayward child who has left the faith. Have we ever had a burden so heavy on our hearts that we just could not help but pray?

For those of us who have experienced this before, you know how tiring it can be. But we do not have to lose heart, because we have a great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is advocating for each one of us.

7. The Lord Jesus Christ and the Greater Wrestling

He Himself experienced what it is like to wrestle in prayer when He was in the garden of Gethsemane. Three times He prayed to have the cup pass from Him. Like Jacob, the Lord Jesus Christ was all alone in the garden, in the dead of the night. His disciples had all fallen asleep, oblivious to His struggle, much like Jacob’s own family members.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground—not from any strenuous physical activity, but from Him agonizing in prayer, all because of the burden He would soon have to bear.

But praise be to God, the Lord Jesus Christ did not choose to do His own will, but submitted to His Father’s will, going all the way to the cross. On the cross, He was struck by God when the wrath of God was placed on Him, as He bore the sins of the whole world in His body. He laid down His life on the cross so that sinful men and women like you and me can be reconciled to a holy God.

But that is not all. Not only did God raise Him from the dead on the third day, God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name. The Lord Jesus Christ is now seated on high, on the right hand of God, but He also continues to bear the marks of His sufferings in His body until today.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what a wonderful Savior we have. The Lord Jesus Christ was made in all things like us. He understands how we feel, and He can sympathize with us because He Himself experienced what it is like to be human. So let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

8. Jacob’s Broken Strength

The morning soon came, and the Man disappeared. The only thing that remained was Jacob and his dislocated hip.

I wonder if his family would be perplexed when they saw him the next morning. I can imagine his wife saying to him, “You went out for the night and came back crippled—what were you doing? What happened to you?”

But what Jacob received was more than a physical injury. You see, the hip represents the strength of a person in the Bible. God really did Jacob good in that wrestling match by taking away his strength—the strength that he so often relied on.

But that is not all. If we thought that the wrestling match was over, then we could not be more wrong. To God, the wrestling match had just started.

God was not done with Jacob.

From here on in the book of Genesis, you will notice something rather interesting. Sometimes Jacob was called by his original name, Jacob, but there were also times when Jacob was called by his new name, Israel. If you were to do a quick study on the various times Jacob was called Israel, you would notice that it happens whenever Jacob was in the will of God.

But it did not happen all the time. There was an internal struggling, an internal wrestling, as it were, between Jacob and Israel, between Jacob’s own will and God’s sovereign will. Sometimes Jacob wins. Sometimes Israel wins. Much like the struggle between the old and new man within us.

But that is not all. God was about to make Jacob realize who is the one in control of his life.

9. God’s Long Wrestling with Jacob

Not long after this wrestling incident, God took away the wife that Jacob loved, the wife that he worked fourteen years of his life for. God took away Rachel. She died not too long after Jacob had her as his wife.

And if that is not enough, God subsequently took away the first son that Jacob had with her, which was also Jacob’s favorite son among his other eleven sons. God took away Joseph. While Joseph did not actually die, the news that Jacob received was that he died a horrible death, being torn into pieces by wild animals. Jacob mourned for his son many days and refused to be comforted.

At this point, I kind of feel sorry for Jacob. But sadly, it did not end there. As if it were the final nail in the coffin, God took away Benjamin, the second and only remaining son that Jacob had with Rachel.

It is as if God deliberately took away everything that Jacob got with his own strength. Each time God took away one of these things that Jacob loved, Jacob broke a little inside. But when God finally took away everything that Jacob held dear, Jacob gave up. He gave up.

You can see this in Genesis 43:14. Notice, this is Israel speaking, not Jacob. Genesis 43:14 reads, “May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”

Where is that man who would fight tooth and nail to get what he wanted? Where is that man whose mind was full of tricks and schemes? Where is that man who prevailed against God? I only see a man who is defeated, who has put both his hands up in the air and surrendered.

God was the final victor of the wrestling match.

When you think about it, it is quite hard to take in, is it not? But you see, brothers and sisters in Christ, the moment Jacob surrendered to God was the moment God turned his life around.

Right after this, Jacob not only came to know that his son Benjamin did not have to be taken captive, but also that his son Joseph was still alive. The son that he thought dead, his favorite son, was not just alive, but had actually become second in command in the whole of Egypt. When Jacob heard the news, we are told that his spirit revived, and he immediately set out to go and meet his son in the land of Egypt.

But more importantly, it was on the way to Egypt that God spoke to Jacob again after a period of silence. For twenty years, the wrestling match between Jacob and God had been going on in silence, much like what happened that night.

When God finally spoke to Jacob, God not only reassured him that He would make him a great nation in Egypt, but also that his son Joseph would be the one to close Jacob’s eyes when Jacob died.

Jacob—or may I say Israel—now realized that whatever he could ever achieve with his own strength pales in comparison to what God could bless him with. It was in his old age that Israel finally realized that it is infinitely better to surrender to the Lord than to hold on to his own will.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it took God the whole lifetime of Jacob to change him, to break him down, to wrestle with him, in order to remove that nature of a supplanter from Jacob so that God could use him for His glory.

And guess what? God does the same to each one of us. He is molding us to be more like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by removing that old nature that is in us and giving us a new one, so that we too can be used for His glory. It may take Him a few days to achieve that, or it may take Him many years. Nevertheless, you can be sure of one thing: God is still working on you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how old you are, He will never give you up.

10. Should We Wrestle with God?

So, having said all that, I suppose the last question that we have yet to answer is this: Should we wrestle with God? Is it wrong to wrestle with God in the first place? That is quite a controversial question, is it not?

Now there is a verse in Malachi chapter 1, also summarized in Romans 9:13: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” Notice, the one that God loved is Jacob the supplanter, the schemer.

Why would God love such a person?

Well, consider Jacob once again in his wrestling with God. Jacob was not wrestling to break free from God’s hand. He wanted to obey God in returning to his homeland, but he just could not let God take control of everything. Nevertheless, at the end of his life, Jacob learned how much better it is to surrender to the Lord than to rely on his own strength.

Now consider again the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this world to do His Father’s will. But when He was in the garden of Gethsemane, He struggled as He aligned His own will to His Father, because the cup He had to drink was just that bitter. But through that struggle, the Lord learned obedience by the things which He suffered—Hebrews 5:8.

Again, consider the apostle Paul. He was called to suffer many things for the Lord’s name. But when a thorn in the flesh came into his life, he too pleaded with the Lord three times to have the thorn removed from him. The Lord did not remove the thorn, but through that thorn Paul learned that God’s grace is sufficient for him, and God’s strength is made perfect in Paul’s weakness.

Beloved, these individuals were not disobedient to God’s will, yet they wrestled with God—not to break free, but to better fit themselves into the perfect, sovereign will of God. And as they struggled to do that, they learned something precious that would forever be their own.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if that is your reason to wrestle with God, then wrestle with all your heart. Because at the end of it all, you will come to know God in a personal way that is unique to you, and nobody can ever take that away from you.

Wrestle with all your heart.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, Lord, as we think about this passage and consider who You are, O Lord, that You are the God who is above the heavens, the almighty God, the thrice holy God, and yet You are also a personal God to each one of us—you will take each one of us, our lives, and mold us so that we will be more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

No matter how long it will take, O Lord, You never give up on us. And Lord, as we think of these things, we really tremble before You because of just how great You are, and what You would do for us.

And Lord, as we continue our journey here on earth, we pray that we may come to know You more and more each day through the good and bad of life, through the struggles and through times of happiness, knowing that each of these events will help us to know just who You are and what You have done for each one of us. So that on the day we see You face to face, it will be so natural that we just bow the knee before You and thank You for all that You have done.

Lord, as we continue our life here, for those whose lives are a bit more difficult than others, we pray that Your mercy may be upon them, that they may remember that You are still working in their lives and that Your love has never left them.

We thank You for Your Word that comforts us whenever we need help. So Lord, we pray that as we leave this place, we will part with Your blessing, and continue to encourage one another till the day You return.

We pray all of this in the name of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.