I want to read to you in Genesis
chapter 32 together, if you would please. Genesis chapter 32. I've
entitled this message, Christ wrestles with Jacob. And Jacob
went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob
saw them, he said, This is God's host. And he called the name
of that place Mahanaim. And Jacob sent messengers before
him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country
of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall you speak
unto my lord Esau, thy servant saith thus, I have sojourned
with Laban, and stayed there until now, and I have oxen and
asses, flocks and maids, and men's servants, and women's servants,
and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find grace in thy
sight. And the messengers returned to
Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh
to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was
greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that
was with him and the flocks and herds and the camels into two
bands. And he said, If Esau come to
the one company and smite it, then the other company which
is left shall escape. And Jacob said, O God of my father
Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said to
me, return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal
well with thee. I am not worthy of the least
of all the mercies and of all the truth which thou hast showed
unto thy servant. For with my staff I passed over
this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray
thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I
fear him, lest he will come and smite me and the mother with
the children. And thou saidst, this is Jacob
still praying to the Lord, he said, And thou saidst, I will
surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be numbered for multitude. And Jacob lodged there
that same night, and took of that which came to his hand a
present for Esau his brother, two hundred she-goats and twenty
he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch-camels
with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she-asses
and ten foals. And he delivered them into the
hand of his servants. Every drove by themselves, and
said to his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt
drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost,
saying, When Esau, my brother, meeteth thee, and asketh thee,
saying, Whose art thou, and whither goest thou, and whose are these
before thee? Then thou shalt say, They be
thy servant Jacob's, it is a present sent unto my lord Esau, and behold
also, he is behind us. And so commanded he the second,
and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner
shall you speak to Esau, when you find him. And say ye, moreover,
behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will
appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward
I will see his face. Peradventure he will accept of
me. So went the present over before him, and himself lodged
that night in the company. And he rose up that night, and
took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven
sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. A ford is like a creek
or river or something. And he took them and sent them
over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left
alone. And there wrestled a man with
him until the breaking of the day. And when the man saw that
he prevailed not against Jacob, he touched the hollow of Jacob's
thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh
was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, the man
who was wrestling with Jacob, he said, let me go, for the day
breaketh. And he said, that is Jacob, I will not let thee go,
except thou bless me. And he said to him, What is thy
name? And he said, Jacob. And he said,
Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
And Jacob asked him and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.
And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there, and
Jacob called the name of the place Penuel. For I have seen
God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed
over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel
eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the
thigh unto this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's
thigh, and the sinew that shrank. Now I didn't read through the
rest of chapter 31 where we were last week, but I would just like
to give you a refresher on the life of Jacob here to set the
context. One thing I will say about this
at the outset though, all that God has taught us so far about
Jacob is a message of sovereign grace, of eternal sovereign grace. You remember what the New Testament
says in Romans chapter 9, that when the children were not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works. but of him that calleth." It
was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger. It was God's
eternal purpose to choose Jacob, to bless Jacob in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And God did it that way in order
that our salvation would not be of works, but of him that
calls us. That call was made when God chose
Jacob. It was made when He sent the
Lord Jesus Christ into the world. He called us by His name, and
then He called us by His grace, by His Spirit, when He pointed
us to Christ, and we found our hope in Him. So this message
of Jacob is just that. It's a message of God's eternal,
sovereign grace towards sinners in Christ. And Jacob says as
much when he prays to the Lord, saying, I'm not worthy of the
least of your mercies and of your truth which you've shown
to your servant. But when the twins were in the womb, you remember
how God told Rebekah that the two twins in her womb were two
nations and that they were going to struggle one with the other.
And so it was that when Jacob was born, he took hold of his
brother's His brother's heel, Esau's heel, because that meant
that he would trip up Esau. That was his name. They called
him Jacob, which meant supplanter, the one who trips up. He took
advantage of Esau when Esau was coming from the field, because
Esau was an outdoorsman. And men admired him for that,
I think. Jacob, it says in scripture,
was just a plain man. Nothing distinguishing about
him. Except maybe this negative characteristic about his tripping
up. But Esau was well favored among
men, it seems like, because he was a hunter. He was successful. His father favored him. His father wanted to bless Esau.
But when Esau came out of the field that time and was hungry,
Jacob had made some soup. He hung around the tent evidently.
and made some soup and he took advantage of Esau's hunger and
he offered to trade the soup for Esau's birthright, which
Esau agreed to. And that showed how Jacob took
advantage of Esau and lived up to his name as the supplanter,
the one who trips up. taking advantage of him. Of course,
Esau had nothing praiseworthy in what he did. In fact, I think
that you would have to draw the conclusion in reading the New
Testament that Esau was far worse than Jacob because he sold his
birthright. He despised the blessing that
was in Christ, and that is a far worse sin than this other sin
which Jacob had as part of his characteristic in nature, which
was to trick And to get what he got by bargaining, even to
his advantage, all the time. Always planning, always scheming,
always trying to get things for himself. And even taking advantage
of people in the process of doing that. So, as you remember, when
Isaac grew old, his father, Jacob's father Isaac, when he grew old,
and his eyes were dim, he couldn't see well enough to see which
son was which, then Rebecca, Jacob's mother, devised a scheme
whereby Jacob could go in and trick his father that he was
actually Esau. She knew that Isaac was intent
on blessing Esau, so she sent Jacob in to disguise himself
as Esau, and that's what Jacob did. He at first was reluctant
to do it, then he went in and he played the part so well that
Isaac was completely fooled and Isaac blessed Jacob over Esau. And so Jacob stole the blessing.
If you look back at Genesis chapter 29, Just to remind you what impact
this had. Actually, not Genesis 29, but
Genesis 27. He says in verse 32, Isaac his
father, this is after Jacob had left and Esau had come in. Isaac
his father said to him, who art thou? He's speaking now to Esau.
And Esau said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac
trembled very exceedingly. because he knew he had been fooled
at this point. And he said, Who? Where is he
that hath taken venison, and brought it me? And I have eaten
of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he
shall be blessed. He realized at that point it
was God's arrangement that it would be this way, because undoubtedly
he recalled God's promise. But in verse 34, listen, And
when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great
and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me,
even me also, my father. And he said, Thy brother, this
is Isaac, speaking about his own son, he said, Thy brother
came with subtlety, and hath taken away thy blessing. That's
what Jacob was, subtle. He stole his brother's blessing.
And Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he hath supplanted
me these two times, and he took away my birthright, and behold,
now he has taken away my blessing." And so you see the sorrow in
Esau's whole attitude here, because he lost the blessing. But he
was thinking of an earthly blessing, and he blamed Jacob for his problems,
which was another sign of his character deficiencies. The point
is here that Jacob was every bit that his name said he was,
he was a tricker. Someone who swindled people when
it was to his advantage. And so he did this and Esau determined
to kill his brother. And so Rebekah told Jacob to
flee, to run to Laban, to hide out there for a while until his
brother's fury was passed. And so Jacob left there. And
as he left, his father gave him a charge to take a wife from
Laban's daughters. And he did that. He went there.
But you remember God met him on the way. And He blessed him. And He said many things to him
in promise. But Jacob finally arrived there
with Laban. He worked for Rachel for seven
years. And then Laban tricked Jacob
and gave him Leah instead of Rachel. Remember that? Last week's
sermon? Jacob was married to Leah for
only one week before he married Rachel, Leah's younger sister. And it says in scripture that
Jacob loved Rachel, but he hated Leah. That had to be a hard,
hard thing for Leah. I can't imagine what it was.
But in all this, God taught Jacob many things and teaches us these
things. First of all, in Laban, Jacob
saw himself the deceiver. And that was painful. In Leah,
Jacob saw this one who was weak-eyed and weary and unloved and unfavored
and even hated by her husband and despised by her younger sister
who was favored and beautiful. And yet Leah trusted in the Lord,
and when Judah was born, she named him Praise Judah, which
means praise, because she saw that in Christ she would praise
the Lord. And so we see in Leah that God
taught Jacob his grace, his character of grace. And then we saw how
Rachel, in Rachel God showed Jacob his own peevish, spiteful,
scheming, complaining, superstitious self. And in Rachel we see how
Christ's love for his sinful people is undeserved, completely
undeserved. And so Jacob After 14 years,
he decides to leave Laban. He tells Laban, I'm leaving.
I'm taking my wives and my children. And Laban didn't want him to
leave because, and this is the part we didn't read in chapter
31, Laban saw that the Lord blessed him because of Jacob. And so
he talked Jacob into staying. And he even offered Jacob, he
says, I'll pay you wages. You just name the price. And
Jacob said, I don't want anything except this. I'll take all of
the sheep that are spotted and speckled and ring-streaked. You
know I've served you all these years, protected your flock.
I haven't taken anything. I bear the loss of all of it.
Cold at night, heat in the summer. The whole thing was on me and
you haven't lost anything. So I want you to just give me
this. Give me the spotted, the speckled, and the ring-streaked. Now that was Jacob's way of swindling
Laban. Now he had Laban at a disadvantage.
Laban wanted him to stay. Jacob saw that God blessed him
and Laban knew it. And so Laban needed Jacob to
stay because his flocks were greatly blessed because the Lord
blessed Jacob. But Jacob said, I'll take the
sheep which in appearance are imperfect in the eyes of man,
those spottled and speckled and ring-streaked sheep. I'll take
the ones that nobody wants, the ugly ones. And here we have our
Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? He took the ugly ones. He took
the spotted and the speckled and the ring-streaked. And he
said, those will be my wages. I'll work for them. And I'll
have them. I'll lay my life down for them.
Give me all the despised who in themselves have no beauty.
Give them to me. They're mine. I'll have them. I'll keep them. And I will not
let them go. That's our shepherd. That's the
one who calls us. Who calls his people by their
names. And they hear his voice and they
follow him. To be a sheep of the Lord Jesus
Christ is to be saved. It's to be saved with an eternal
salvation. It's to be saved by grace. It's
to be saved by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But these
sheep that Jacob chose, without realizing it, being a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ, choosing these sheep for his own, setting
himself up for that, he was actually identifying himself as one of
those speckled and spotted and ring-streaked who the Lord loved. Because God said, Jacob have
I loved. Jacob have I loved." And in Numbers
23-21, I think I read this to you last time. In Numbers 23-21,
God says, I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob. Neither have I seen
perverseness in Israel. That's what God said. How could
he not? It wasn't that he didn't have
any iniquity. It wasn't that he wasn't perverse
in himself. But God said, I don't see it
in him. Why? Because he lifted from Jacob
his iniquity and he laid his iniquity on his own son. And
the Lord Jesus Christ bore his iniquity to the cross. Bore the
curse and the shame and the reproach of his Jacobs. And in bearing
that, God imputed the righteousness, that love of Christ, that everlasting
love of Christ for His own, that caused Him to lay His life down
for them. And God imputed that righteousness, which fulfilled
His law to His people. And He says, I see no iniquity
in Jacob. We're the Jacob, aren't we? The
sheep of God are his Jacob's. Jacob the swindler, Jacob the
deceiver, Jacob the tricker, Jacob the one who always looked
for himself and managed and planned and schemed. And yet he says
this to Laban, and it makes me wonder, does it make you wonder,
am I one of the Lord Jesus' sheep? Does he ever think about that?
Am I one of his? I know that if I'm His, I'm kept. I know that if I'm His, I'm saved.
Am I one of His? What makes the difference? How
do I know I'm one of God's sheep? Look at Isaiah 53. I want you
to see this verse from Isaiah 53. How do I know? Well, we're
going to see this in Jacob, but I want to give you a preview
of it here in Isaiah 53. He says this. Verse 6. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. If I'm one of the Lord's sheep,
what does it mean about my character, about my lifestyle, about my
mind and my thoughts? I've gone astray. We have turned
everyone to his own way. There's something particularly
evil about each one of God's sheep that's uniquely sinful
about them. And the Lord says they've turned
everyone to His own way. That specially, that way in which
we've specially erred. We especially urge the ones that
are scabby and scraggly and ugly in themselves, because of what
we've done, our sin. And listen to this, that the
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. So the question is,
am I one of God's sheep? The question comes back. Are
you the ungodly one? The sinful one? The one who's
gone in a special aggravated way of your own way? And have
you seen the Lord Jesus Christ to be your only shepherd, the
only one in whom you have any salvation, any hope of life,
any hope of acceptance before God, because the Lord laid on
Him the iniquity of us, of us all, all of God's sheep? Then
you are one of the Lord's sheep, if that's true of you. One of
those scabby and weak and scraggly and no good sheep. Ignorant,
going astray, and the Lord saved them by laying their iniquity
on Christ. And you see that. You see, that
the Lord saves the sinfulest ones. Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. That's the cry
of every sheep, isn't it? Listen to this, what it says
in Psalm 2511. I love this psalm. Psalm 2511. He says this, the
psalmist prays. He says, For thy namesake, O
Lord, not for mine, for thy namesake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity. Why? Because it's great. Because
my iniquity is so bad, so vile, so hateful. I hate it. It's great. It's against you. I can't do
anything about it. It's all my fault. Lord, save
me. Pardon my iniquity. It's great. You are the only
one who can save this sinner. Your glory is great in your salvation
of your people. And so Laban gives Jacob this
right to take the speckled and spotted and ring-streaked sheep.
And then you know what Jacob did? He trusted the Lord entirely
at that point and God blessed him. No, that's not what he did.
He went out and he got these sticks or rods or whatever they're
called and he peeled them off so that when the strongest rams
mated with the sheep, the ewes, he put those striped rods in
front of them thinking superstitiously that this was going to cause
the strongest rams to have sheep for his counting. The speckled,
the spotted, and the ring-striped. So, what did Jacob do? He stole Laban's sheep by doing
this. At least he thought. That was
his intent. That was going on in his head. But God blessed
him in spite of what he did. See, Jacob was always making
these plans and then expecting God to use his schemes in order
to bless him. But God blessed him in spite
of what he did. That's the message of grace. In spite of me, but
God. who is rich in mercy, when we
were the enemies, but God who is rich in mercy for His great
love." That's the message of grace. And so, in all these things,
we see Jacob's grasping and bargaining and taking advantage for himself. And all these things. And so
we meet up with him here in Genesis 32. And this is where we've joined
the account here in verse 1. It says, "...Jacob went on his
way, and the angels of God met him." This is God's host, he
said. He called the place Mayanaim, God's armies. And so Jacob sent
messengers to where Esau was, to Mount Seir. And when they
brought back the report, they said, Esau's coming to meet you.
And he has 400 men. And so Jacob was extremely afraid.
And Jacob, when he sent the messengers, listen to what he said. He said,
tell him, thy servant Jacob saith thus. And he says, thus shall
you speak unto my lord Esau. Jacob humbled himself before
his brother Esau. And you might say, well he did
that because he was such a humble man. And perhaps he had been
humbled somewhat by his whole encounter with Laban. But we
still see here Jacob working his own methods in order to get
Esau on his side. He took the birthright, he took
the blessing. And he knew Esau intended to
kill him. And he's carrying that with him
all this time. He's got to humble himself. He's coming back. God
told him to leave. God told him to go back. And so he's coming
back and he sends this message to Esau. And he sends it in these
fawning terms. Where he's trying to make himself
like a dog with his tail between his legs coming up, licking the
boots of his brother. This is what you see in Jacob. And then he creates this present.
All these animals, he sends them. He says, I did this in order
to appease my brother. In verse 20, to appease him.
The word for appease means to atone. To atone for the wrath
that Esau had towards him. To remove that wrath with a present.
So Jacob was always trying to manipulate things and he was
trying to get it done this way. This was Jacob's plan. There
was no record that Jacob actually asked God what to do. No record
that he sought God's counsel beforehand what he should do
with Esau. It seems as if he devised this
plan on his own. He hashed it on his own. And
so he presents this present to his brother, sends all these
people across, and when he heard that his brother was coming,
he prayed this prayer, "'O God of my father, Abraham.'" And
this prayer is a wonderful prayer. I can't think of anything wrong
with it at all. He speaks to God as the God of
his father. And so we speak to God as the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And He speaks to Him
according to His promises. And so we speak to God according
to His promises. We speak to Him as one who is
unworthy of the least of His mercies. And that's the way we
come. And so Jacob did here. We thank Him for all the truth
that He's shown to us. And that's what Jacob did here.
And he says in verse 11 of Genesis 32, he says, deliver me, which
is the word save me. Oh, save me, Lord. I pray thee
from the hand of my brother. And we pray that the Lord would
save us. But what you see here is that to Jacob, his greatest
enemy was Esau. Don't you? Don't you see that
Jacob had in his mind, he had this monstrous enemy he could
do nothing about. It was Esau, his brother. The one he's tricked a couple
of times in life. And he had his vengeance in his
heart, and he knew that. And so he thought, Lord, I can't
deliver myself from my brother. And so Jacob goes into this thing
with his brother as his large enemy. But the problem was that
Jacob didn't see who his true enemy was. His true enemy was
himself. Jacob's enemy was his own confidence
in Jacob. Jacob's enemy was his own character
as a swindler. And so, the Lord has to deal
with Jacob. And that's what we see here in
verse, when he does this in verse 24. I want you to look at this.
After Jacob sends all this presence with his children, he put the
children and the slave women in front, then he put Leah with
her children, then he put Rachel with Joseph in the very back,
and then he's following up with them. And he tells them what
to tell them, then he's left alone. He says in verse 24, "...and
Jacob was left alone." And that's the first thing we want to see
here, is Jacob was left alone. Now, I want you to understand
here that what it seems to me that we're to take from this
is that we, each of God's people, is Jacob in this story, in this
account. We're the ones who need to be
left alone. If we're not left alone, then
we will not receive the blessing that Jacob received. We have
to be left alone because we've depended upon ourselves for our
whole life, as Jacob did. Even though God had made promises
to him, Jacob didn't see the grace of God. He didn't know
God's character. And God had to teach him through
Laban, his own character, had to teach him through Rachel the
reflection he saw of himself and her, and all of her superstition
and complaining ways. And then he saw the grace of
God in Leah. And here, Jacob is left alone, trembling with
fear, thinking his enemy was Esau. And the Lord's going to
do something for him here. It says, And there wrestled a
man with him until the breaking of the day. The first thing I
think of here is that when the Lord saves us, He's going to
leave us alone. And he's going to leave us alone
with the man that met here and wrestled with Jacob. Who is this
man? Look at verse 30. It says, Jacob
called the name of the place Peniel. For I have seen God face
to face and my life is preserved. I've seen God face to face. Who
is this man? He's the God-man. He's the one
who is himself God, and Jacob saw face to face. He's the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, Jacob is left alone with
Christ, and Christ wrestles with Jacob. That's what we see here. The Lord Jesus Christ could easily
beat Jacob, couldn't he? He has all power. When you wrestle
with somebody, you have a goal in mind. You're going to obtain
something from them, don't you? Isn't that what wrestling is
about? If you have any strength, you're going to wrestle with
someone in order to get something from them. If Jacob was wrestling
with Christ, then Jacob was trying to get something from Him. But
here it says that the Lord, the man, wrestled with Jacob. Because
the Lord Jesus Christ, in His mercy and grace, wrestles in
order to obtain something from us. But not from us for Himself,
but from us for us. Because Jacob had to be brought
low in his own confidence in himself, in his flesh. And so
do we. We have to be left alone. Fear
all around, dangers all around, no answers, and he was left alone.
And that's where the Lord Jesus met him and wrestled with him.
In order to obtain from Jacob something Jacob couldn't see
or do for himself, he had to be brought to the end of himself. He had to be brought to where
the Apostle Paul was brought. Remember the Apostle Paul going
around breathing out fire and death, trying to imprison the
Christians. And the Lord Jesus appears to
him. And Paul falls on his face. He was blinded by what he saw.
Paul falls on his face and says, Lord, what will you have me to
do? And later Paul recounts that in Philippians 3. He says, The
things I counted gain to me, those I've counted loss for Christ. He says, we're the circumcision
which have no confidence in the flesh. This was Paul's attitude,
because the Lord Jesus brought him low. And so God, the Lord
Jesus is going to bring Jacob low here. He wrestled with him.
And notice how much invested Jacob was in his own strength
here, because he wrestled all night. You see, when we have
confidence in ourselves, it's hard to let it go. We can't let
it go. Not in ourselves, not in our
own strength. We cannot let go of our own self-sense, of our
own self-worth. We think, I'm good and somehow
it's going to pan out in the end. I've got to keep striving
and beating my head against the wall. The Lord has to bring us
to the end of ourselves. And so we wrestled all that night. It says, "...the man wrestled
with Him until the breaking of the day, and when he saw..."
the Lord Jesus as the man, the God-man, when he saw that he
prevailed not against him, because Jacob wasn't giving up, then
he touched the hollow of his thigh. Now that was where his
strength was. It was the strongest part here.
And the Lord touched him so that he would have no strength in
his thigh. He was crippled at that point.
And that's what he needed to do. He had to learn the hard
way that there was no prophet in his flesh. And it reminds
me of what Jesus said to his disciples. He says, the flesh
profits nothing. And in 1 Peter chapter 1 he says,
all flesh is his grass and all the goodliness thereof is as
a flower of the grass. It just passes away. That's how
much good our flesh does. But Jacob had lived his life
depending upon himself. And so the Lord Jesus is going
to bless him, but He's going to bless him in this way. He's
going to save him and bless him in this way. He's first going
to disable him. He's going to take away his strength,
his natural strength. He's going to take away What
he trusts in. His confidence in himself. And
it's going to hurt. But this is the way the Lord
saves his people. Have you ever heard someone say, I called on
the Lord, but he didn't save me. I've heard people say that. I've wondered that myself. Lord,
I called and didn't save you. What were you expecting? You
were expecting to be lifted up? You expect it to be, somehow,
a big bright light shining? And wonderful feelings of joy
and all that stuff? Well, when the Lord saves you,
He's going to bless you in this way. He's going to bring you
to nothing. And then He's going to show you
Himself. This is the whole message of
Scripture. This is what God does. The publican cried, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. We have to see ourselves as sinners.
We have to see Christ as the Savior. And there's only one
who can do that for us. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, by
His Spirit. And so the Lord Jesus is doing
that here in this wrestling match. In this, He teaches us these
things. He's touching the hollow of His thigh. We have to be made
to know that our sin is all our fault. We have to be made to
know that we've sinned against God-given light and truth. We have to know that this sin
is part of our character. It's who we are. Sin comes from
me. It comes from my heart. And it's
a painful thing to learn. We have to see that our sin is
against God and see that we have no power over our sin, over who
we are. We can't change ourselves. We
can't make ourselves better before God. And sometimes we find ourselves
praying, Lord, help me. And we follow that up with things
like, do right, be good, etc. But what the Lord is going to
teach us, if He teaches us anything about our Savior, is that all
that God looks for is found in His Son. And faith is that gift
that causes us to look away from all that we are, sin-bitten,
serpent-bitten, because of our own sin, under the curse, and
look away to Christ. And so he wrestles with him to
teach him this. It's all my fault, I can do nothing about it. And
so he leaves him in this disabled position. And notice what happens
next. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint and he
wrestled with him. And he said, the Lord Jesus,
in this man, he said, let me go, for the day breaketh. This
is what he tells Jacob, let me go. And Jacob said, I will not
let thee go, except thou bless me. And here you see reverberating. First of all, you see Job and
Peter and Isaiah and all those, the publican. You hear them crying
with that lamentable cry. Job said, Behold, I am vile. Peter said, Depart from me, Lord,
I'm a sinful man. And Isaiah said, Woe is me, I'm
undone. All these things are reflective
of the fact that God first teaches us what we are in ourselves.
Nothing but sin. And it comes from our very character
and from our heart. And then he shows us the Lord
Jesus. He says, Let me go. And Jacob says, I will not let
thee go, except thou bless me. At this point he had only one
thing. He had been disabled, and yet he had, he was clinging
to Christ. Clinging to his feet, clinging
to him some way. But it shows us that when the
Lord saves us, he leaves us with no other option, but that God
in Christ would do something for us. We need Him to do something
for us. I'm disabled now. I can't do
it myself. And so He says, I will not let
thee go. I have nowhere else to go. Look
at John 6, where Jesus had given this... He explained that He was the
bread of life, and that that bread meant that He had to give
His life, and that those who live would live upon His flesh
and blood, that is, believing Him. clinging to him. And he says in verse 67, after
some were, he says in verse 66, from that time many of his disciples
went back and walked no more with him. And Jesus said to the
twelve, will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him,
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. I have nowhere else to go. There's only life in one
place. He's not only bread, but He's
the bread of life. Not only life for me, but He's
the life from God. He's not only all blessings are in Him. He's
the only place blessings are found. He's everything. He's
everything and I have to have Him. I have nowhere else to go. No other one can save a sinner
like me but Christ. That's what the Lord teaches
us. And He does it by what He did on the cross. He does it
because He answered God with Himself for His people. And He
stands in glory, sitting in the right hand of God, exalted, to
save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him. And so he
says, I have nowhere else to go. You have the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,
the Son of the living God. You're the only one, the only
name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.
And so we come to you. Lord, save me. Bless me. All blessings are in Christ.
There are no blessings from God, spiritual blessings, apart from
Christ. And so Jacob says that. Lord,
bless me. Bless me. And so he said to him,
verse 27, what is your name? What's your name? You see how
the Lord is extracting a confession from him now? Who are you? And
he said, Jacob. Jacob, I'm a sinner, and that's
my only claim. And I have no claim on your grace
except that you would bless me for your glory, for your name's
sake." And the Lord said here, verse 28, and he said, okay,
here's the blessing. Thy name shall be called no more
Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince hast thou power
with God and with men, and hast prevailed. I'm not going to call
you Jacob anymore. I'm going to call you Israel.
What is this that the Lord has done here? You see, look at Acts
chapter 15. Acts chapter 15. See how the Lord
teaches us what this means. He says in verse... This is the account where the
apostles were meeting together to discuss what to do about the
Gentiles, whether to lay laws on them or not. And it says here
in verse... 13, James is talking, it says, What
is the tabernacle of David? What are the ruins that he was
going to set up? It's the church. pointing to the church. And yet
we have so many people nowadays looking for a physical temple.
Verse 17, "...that the residue of men might seek after the Lord,"
and listen carefully, "...and all the Gentiles upon whom my
name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things."
What did the Lord say to Jacob? Your name is not going to be
called Jacob anymore. It's going to be called Israel.
And whose name is that? Because as a prince thou hast
had power with God and with men. He gave him the name that belongs
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 5.31 says God has exalted
him, Christ, to be a prince and a savior to give repentance to
Israel and the remission of sins. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
prince. He's the one God has exalted above all. He's the one
who has power with God. He's the prince of peace. He's
the prince of life. He's the one who has, he's over
all principalities and powers. He's the prince. Why would the
Lord Jesus give him that name then, Israel? Because God has
given to Christ to put on his people his own name. Just like
when a man marries his wife, the wife takes the name of her
husband. We are the bride of Christ. Christ has given us his own name. And that's why it says in Jeremiah
33, 16, this is the name whereby she shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. That's Christ's name, the Lord
our righteousness. And yet he has put his name on
his people. They're mine. I'm the good shepherd. They're my sheep. The Lord has
worked out a righteousness for them, and so he calls them by
that name, The Lord Our Righteousness. They have power with God. How?
Because they come to God when Christ comes. He brings them. He appears now in the presence
of God for us. Hebrews 9.24. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our intercessor, our advocate, our answer to God in
all things. He stands before God for his
people in the name that they wear before God, so that when
God sees Him, He sees them. And when He sees them, He looks
upon His Son. He has their name. We have His
name. He has given us His own name, and we go to God by the
blood of Christ, boldly, because we're dressed in His righteousness.
You see, when the Lord brings us to nothing, we only have one
hope. It's that God would look upon
Christ for us. But when we have that hope that
God looks upon Christ for us, then we have all security and
salvation and blessings because God looks upon Christ for us.
He did that. He taught us that. He taught
us to come that way. Look unto me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else."
Isaiah 45, 22. And then he goes on to say, and
surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and
strength. You see, we see that all of our
virtue and merit and acceptance and favor and blessing and everything
before God is what God thinks of His Son. And therefore, we
can come boldly, with all confidence, because Christ is accepted. And
that's the only way we can come. And so he says, bless me. And
he gave him this name. That was the blessing. You're
going to be called Israel. prince who has power with God
and the Lord. You know how much power we have
with the Lord? It's for Christ's sake. It's
because we're one with Him. When the Lord looks upon us,
He doesn't see as one flesh, one blood, one body, one head. The Lord receives us as He receives
His Son. Amazing grace. This is Jacob. But look at verse 29. Or actually, think about this
also. You know how else we have power with God? And this is a
very endearing thing. This is for Christ's sake. When
the Lord sees us in our misery, when He sees us in our helplessness,
you know what He sees? An object of His mercy. An object
of His grace. And the heart of God. as a father,
goes out towards his people, the heart of the Lord Jesus goes
out towards his people in grace, and he has compassion on us. And that has power with him because
he is full of grace. His very character calls out
to save his people. We have power with God because
of Christ. In verse 29, Jacob asked him
and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore
is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. He didn't give him his name.
He didn't say anything more. Why? Because Jacob had seen the
face of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. What more do you need? Thomas and Philip said, Lord,
show us the Father. He said, Have I been so long
time with you and you haven't seen me? If you've seen me, you've
seen the Father. Here in verse 30, Jacob said
he called the name of the place Peniel, for I've seen God face
to face. And that takes us all the way
to 2 Corinthians 4.6 where it says, God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. What more do you need? Don't
be curious. Don't be trying to come up into
some kind of inequality here where we can now talk as peers.
I know you. Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough
that the Lord Jesus Christ knows us? Those who appear before him
in Matthew 7, 21-23, on the last day, they'll say, Lord, Lord,
haven't we prophesied in your name, cast out devils in your
name, done many wonderful works? And the Lord says, I never knew
you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. What I need is for
the Lord to know me that I might know Him. And that knowing Christ
is knowing that my salvation in all that I am before God is
in Him. And so he blessed him there.
And Jacob called the name of the place Penuel. For I've seen
God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed
over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
Now the light breaks forth. The morning dawns. Jacob is in
a place now where he sees himself in true light. And he limps now. He's got this weakness. Because
that's the way God deals with us in grace. The Apostle Paul
says, look at 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Let's take you to this real
quickly here. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. It's something I know that you're
familiar with, but it does us well to read it again. In verse
7, Paul is reflecting on the fact that he knew this man. He's
speaking of himself, but he won't name himself, who was given a
vision of the third heaven. He says in verse 7, "...unless
I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the
revelations, it was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan, to buffet me." always punching on me, lest
I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the
Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said this to
me, My grace is sufficient for thee. That's what Jacob learned.
My grace is sufficient for thee. All of God's grace. That's what
a sinner needs. That's the only thing I need.
And then he says this, My strength is made perfect in weakness. When we When we see the strength
of our own ability, that's a false strength. There's no power in
that. The flesh profits nothing. But
when we see ourselves before God weak, and we see that all
of our strength is in Christ, then we are truly strong. Then
we're truly blessed. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. Most gladly, therefore, Paul said, will I glory Well,
I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong." That's what Jacob did. He halted on his thigh. He was
weak, then he was strong. When he was weak and saw Christ
alone, then he was strong. Therefore, the children of Israel,
eat not of the sin you have shrank." What an amazing thing the Lord
did here for Jacob. Jacob's healing and Jacob's blessing
was not what he expected. The enemy that he thought he
had was Esau. Turns out, wasn't Esau. God overthrew
Jacob. He overthrew him. in what he
thought of himself he overthrew him and what he had come to realize
that all of his salvation and strength and blessing was only
in Christ. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that through
the Lord Jesus you would receive us and bless us for his sake
and help us, give us this grace to endure the humbling of ourselves
that we might be set free from this clinging to our own self-righteousness,
our own thoughts of strength to do what we can, when we know,
Lord, that only your Spirit can accomplish the work. Only You
can show us Christ, and only Christ can make us acceptable
before God. And we pray, Lord, that You would
do for us what only You can, what we cannot do for ourselves.
Show us this mercy in Christ, teach us Your truth, take glory
to Yourself, and bless us for His sake. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.