you Genesis chapter 32, verse 22 through 32, what I really encourage you to turn there and follow around in the biblical narrative.

I can honestly tell you that I'm not aware of a passage in the Old Testament that gives us more sobering truths.

When I say, when I use the word sobering, I mean something that really causes us to think about the character of God, how he works in our lives, and then in reality, just to remind us that God is not tamable.

God is someone that...

We seek to understand, we seek to understand the way he works in our lives and then ultimately we submit to that.

So that's what I mean by sobering.

So Genesis 32, when I say the following names, I want you to think about what you're reminded of.

So if we mention the word or the name Abraham, I know for me it's the father of our faith, that God will provide a lamb when he takes Isaac up on the top of Mount Moriah and that there's a ram caught into the thicket and then it's kind of a foreshadowing.

of what will one day happen when God sends his own lamb to take away the sins of the world.

I think of Moses.

What do you think of?

I think of Ten Commandments.

I think of the promised land.

Samson, we dealt with a few weeks ago.

I think of strength.

I think of Samson stretching out his hands and breaking down the columns in a symbolic act as a foreshadowing again that Christ will stretch out his hands and will take away the will die for us and in his own death and his own self-sacrifice will actually defeat the When I say Joseph, what do you think of?

I think of archetypes, someone that's a type of Jesus as he saves his people from extinction, delivers them from the enemy, in this case the enemy of famine and death and annihilation.

But then I come up with another name.

This is also in the Old Testament, so I'm not talking about a New Testament character yet.

I think of Jacob.

When you think of Jacob, just think for a moment, let me give you some time.

What do you think about?

The thing that enters my mind at this point in my life when I hear the word Jacob or the name Jacob, Jacob is the only man in the Bible who experienced a one-on-one wrestling match with God.

He wrestled with God.

What would that have been like?

If you know Jacob's story, you know that his name means to wrestle or to strive.

His entire life, from the time he was born, was about entitlement and about the reality that he didn't believe that God was holding up his end of the bargain, a bargain or a contract he had made with God without God's approval.

So right from the get go, if you know the story of Jacob, he's reaching for his brother's hill trying to pull him back into the womb.

Esau was born first, Jacob second.

Even though they're twins or they're born just seconds apart, the reality is, according to the rule of primogeniture, the oldest son gets all the wealth.

He's the one that's given the responsibility to expand the land, to expand the family name.

The second and third children or sons and daughters were basically farm hands.

They were to work under the authority of the older son.

So right from the get go, it's almost like Jacob in the womb knows...

that he doesn't want to play this role of second fiddle.

So he's pulling back east, or he grabs his heel and tries to pull him back into the womb, as if to say, get back in here.

I want to go first.

Later on in Jacob's life, we learn that Jacob is in the kitchen cooking.

Esau is out hunting.

Esau comes in famished and he needs a bowl of soup and he's so desperate he thinks he's going to die.

Jacob looks at this as an opportunity and he says, okay, I'll make you some soup and give you some soup if you'll sell me your birthright.

Of course, Esau doesn't really believe that it works that way, but he says, fine, whatever you want, give me some soup, you can have the birthright.

Jacob is always striving.

He's always striving.

always manipulating, always coercing the events around him to get what he thinks he deserves.

Then of course at some point he deceives his father Isaac into having the birthright blessing and then he's going to be able to get his way.

story of how the He wounds the heart of his father with the help of his mother, dresses up to smell and look like Esau, gets away with it.

But then of course Esau, his older brother, now wants to kill him.

So Jacob has to flee home.

He runs away from home.

He leaves the woman, the only woman who's ever loved him, his own mother.

He deceives his father, wounds the heart of his father.

Now his older brother wants to kill him.

He runs into the land of Uncle Laban, and Uncle Laban is also a conniver and deceiver, but Jacob, when he's with Uncle Laban, sees Rachel.

He's overwhelmed with her beauty, and suddenly he shifts gears, and he thinks, okay, if I can just get this girl, if I can marry this beautiful woman, all my problems will be solved.

Of course, Laban plays a trick, and instead, because Jacob gets drunk on his wedding night, ends up marrying Leah rather than Rachel, so he has to work another seven years.

So Jacob is being out wrestled and out striven.

And finally, he marries Rachel and he marries Leah.

He has 14 children and now he's gone away into his own land to build his own wealth.

So no matter where he goes and what he does, his whole life is about manipulation and coercion.

Even with God himself, he tries to manipulate.

In fact, let me read a quote to you.

These are the words of Jacob.

He says, God, if you will help me and give me food and protect me, and if you will help me finally get my home and back to my land and my people safely, then I will make you Lord, the Lord my God.

So he's even bargaining with God.

God, if you do these things for me, then I will serve you.

I will make you my Lord and I will make you my God.

So his love for God and service to God is always contingent upon God behaving the way he thinks God should behave.

Now here we are in Genesis 32.

It's judgment day.

Esau is riding with his Adiraj to finally take care of Jacob once and for all.

Jacob has been a thorn in Esau's side.

Esau has the power and wealth now to destroy Jacob.

Now what's going on?

Obviously Jacob has grown up a little bit because notice what he does, and we'll read the text momentarily.

He sends gifts to Esau to try to appease Esau, to try to calm him down.

As he's sending the gifts, he sends everyone, all of his wealth, his family, his wives, his children, he sends all of them away, and then he kneels to pray.

It's almost like Jacob's finally starting to get it.

That something's amiss here and the only person that can solve his problem, or the only one that can solve his problem ultimately is not himself, not Esau, but God himself.

So let me pick up the story.

I'm in Genesis chapter 32, verse 22 says this, that night Jacob got up, took his two wives, his two female servants, his 11 sons, and crossed the fort of the Jebuch.

After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

The man asked him, What is your name?

Jacob, he answered.

Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you've struggled with God and with man and have overcome.

Jacob said, please tell me your name.

But he replied, why do you ask me my name?

Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

Now, as I said before, this text is one of the most sobering passages of scripture when we start to define God that I know of in the Old Testament.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want to give you some lessons here.

I want you to write them down.

You know that I seldom ask you to do that, but there are some things I feel that you need to write down and go back to in the most difficult aspects or difficult seasons of your life.

So here's the first thing I want you to write down and we'll describe the text.

Number one, the most important events in your life you have to face alone.

The most important events in your life, you're going to have to face them alone.

Recently I had nasal passage surgery.

It was a horrible surgery, but I'd had trouble breathing for a long, long time.

When I went in for the surgery that day, and you think, well, it's not, it's a minor surgery.

They still put you to sleep, but you never know what can happen.

All my friends texted me.

Rob and my wife went with me.

All my acquaintances are wishing me well, and I appreciate that, and there's value in that.

But when the time came for me to go through the doors into surgery, no one can go with me.

I'm going all by myself." And in that moment, you recognize something.

That if your relationship with God never becomes personal, you will always feel alone, and you will always experience the most difficult seasons of life alone.

If God is just theory or an abstract idea or concept to you, if you have never done your business with God alone.

then you will feel alone the rest of your life.

Jacob had pursued God, wrestled with God all of his life, but he wasn't really after God.

As we mentioned before, he wanted God to help him get the things that he really thought would satisfy or please him.

In effect, Jacob was an idol worshiper and he was hoping that God could help him get the things that he truly loved.

He never pursued or wrestled with God for the sake of getting God.

So now we come to this text, this narrative, and God is going to do some business with So number one, the most important events in your life you're going to have to face alone, and that includes getting to know God in a relationship.

Until you've done that, you will feel alone the rest of your life.

Now here's the second thing.

God will pursue you, but he will never overpower you.

Again, we learn this from the story.

Now, this is going to develop as we go, so I really need you to focus.

This is the most difficult part of the message.

It's a bit philosophical, but very, I mean, extremely pragmatic and practical.

Going back to the text in Genesis 32, verse 24, so Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

Now, who is this man?

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, that is Jacob.

He touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak, but Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me." Now there are a lot of questions here.

Number one, who is Jacob wrestling?

Now later in the text, Jacob calls the place Peniel because I have seen the face of God and lived.

So God is wrestling Jacob.

Jacob is wrestling the pre-incarnate Christ.

This is not just an angel of order, this is the angel of the Lord, caps, and this signifies to us that Jacob is wrestling God himself.

Now if he's wrestling God, then what does the text mean when it says, God could not overpower him, so he touched his hip?

All of those are important questions, and we're going to reveal those as we go here.

Let me say again, God will pursue you, but he will never overpower you.

In the famous writings of Dostoevsky, the great novel entitled The Brothers Karamazov, the agnostic brother Ivan Karamazov writes a poem and it's famous.

It's called The Great Inquisitor.

In the poem, a cardinal who is somewhere 90 years old, tall and erect, recognizes Jesus and has Jesus thrown him into prison.

So he recognized Jesus, he throws Jesus into prison as if Jesus is making another visit to planet Earth.

And then in the poem you discover why the priest has Jesus, the Savior of the world, thrown into prison.

Let me read what he says.

He says to Jesus, by turning down the three temptations, you forfeited the three greatest powers at your disposal.

Miracle, mystery, and authority.

You should have followed Satan's advice and performed these miracles on demand in order to increase your fame among the people.

Don't you realize that more than anything, people want to worship what's established beyond dispute?

Instead of taking possession of man's freedom, you increased it.

You desired man's free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed, and taken captive by you.

By resisting Satan's temptations to override human freedom, you made yourself far too easy to reject.

Fortunately, the church recognized the error and corrected it, relying on miracle, mystery, and authority ever since.

Now do you understand what this great work is saying?

The priest says to Jesus, you should have dazzled men beyond doubt.

You should have given them the show that they wanted so there would be no doubt who you were and they would have followed you.

You should have given them everything they asked for, bread, wealth, whatever it is they wanted, good health, give it to them and that way they would follow you.

You should have taken possession of man's freedom by overwhelming them so that they could not doubt who you really are.

And because you've not done that, we're going to arrest you and the church will take over.

And now the church will depend on power, authority, and miracle and almost command the hearts of men.

Now, I couldn't help but to think this is the exact approach that communism took for years and years, decades and decades.

They promised the people they would turn the stones into bread to guarantee safety and security for all the people in exchange for one thing, your freedom and your rights.

Give us your total and whole allegiance and we will feed you, clothe you, and make sure you're safe.

Now we will tell you where to live and what to do, but at least you will have the things you're after." The problem is that they could never truly change the hearts of men and gain the ultimate allegiance.

which is an allegiance that is given freely.

I've used this quote before.

It's very powerful.

Pravda, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, wrote an article after the fires or the disaster of Chernobyl.

Here's what they said.

We don't know how to get people to show compassion.

We tried to raise money for the children of Chernobyl, but the average Russian citizen would rather spend their money on drink.

How do you reform and motivate people?

How do you get them to be good?

Seventy-four years of communism prove that beyond all doubt, goodness cannot be legislated from the top down.

No matter how many threats are made, it must grow internally from the bottom up.

This is the hard part, but let's put all this together just for a moment in this first segment.

There is a huge difference between God's power and Satan's power.

Satan's power coerces, dazzles, and attempts to force obedience and then ultimately destroy you.

It comes through the lust of the eyes and the flesh.

There is an attraction to it and a promise, but ultimately it doesn't give life, it brings death.

God's power, by contrast, and this is what the brother Karamazov is getting at.

God's power, by contrast, is eternal and internal and non-coercive.

In the gospel story, God makes himself weak and vulnerable for one purpose, that human beings can choose freely for themselves what to do with him.

Every time I contemplate this, it's almost too wonderful to fathom, because the choice could not have been easy for God.

God could have overwhelmed.

God could have done something that would absolutely, rather than captivate your heart, overwhelm your free will and force you into relationship with him.

He could still do that today, but instead, moving in in total power and strength, he moves in in weakness.

Rather than overriding you, what he does is compel you through sacrificial love.

That is the story of the gospel.

So that's the story.

Offering us that kind of freedom also opens the door to pain and suffering because many men will reject Christ.

And by rejecting this compelling sacrificial relationship, we will go our own way and that will open the door to the lives most of us are living.

However, Dorothy Sayers writes something incredible about the pain and the suffering that comes into the life of humanity.

She says the incarnation means...

That whatever reason God chose to allow us to fall into the ramifications of the human condition, suffering, or the subject of sorrow and death, he nonetheless had the honesty and the courage, the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine.

He himself has gone through the whole of the human experience and the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and the lack of money to the He was born in poverty and suffered infinite pain all for us and thought it well worth his while." Now, what is all this saying?

It's saying that God's nature is so overpoweringly self-giving that he bases his appeal to humanity and the way he works in our lives on sacrificial love, not a pyrotechnic display of power.

Again, remember what we read, only sacrificial love can compel the response God is looking for, relationship freely given, love and affection between the creator and the creature.

The wonder of the gospel story reminds us that God is not after mere allegiance or obedience to power.

He wants something far greater than that.

He desires man's free love that we should follow him freely, enticed and taken captive by him.

So not only will you face the most difficult seasons of your life alone, but you have to understand that God is always working in those seasons, but He will never overpower you.

He will be there, but he will never overpower you.

Often, he will do his best work in your weakness.

The example that the gospel sets is God does his best work in his weakness when he comes in the form of man to die for the sins of the world.

Now, keep that together.

Here's the third thing, and this is probably the most important of the three.

God cannot be tamed.

You cannot tame God.

Jacob is finally getting it.

He sends gifts to Esau.

He sends everyone away to be alone and then he prays.

On the one hand, why does Jacob keep traveling home when he knows that Esau is coming to kill him?

Why not just go back to his land of safety?

Well, the reason is because in Genesis 31 too, God told him to go home.

God said, Jacob, it's time for you to stop striving and wrestling.

Time for you to go home.

So, at least at this point in Jacob's life, he's listening and obeying God, even at the risk of his own life.

So, he's making progress.

Maybe he saw an episode of Dr. Phil where the good doctor said, and how's that working out for you?

Because Jacob's way of doing life has not been working out for him at all.

He sends everyone away so that he can have time to reflect and pray and seek God, what is my next move?

Now, here's the million dollar question, and all of this culminates here.

How do you expect God to respond to a man who obeys him at the risk of his life?

follows God's will, seeks him in prayer, and is at the very end of his rope.

How do you think God is going to respond to Jacob right here, right now?

The answer is, he assaults him.

He puts the hammerlock on him and lames him for the rest of his life.

Now just stop for a moment.

This is not the God of liberal religion, a beneficent God who loves everyone, the perfect God of love.

And as I've said before, a perfect God of love would also be a perfect God of justice and holiness and judgment, all of those put together.

But neither is this the God of the conservative religion.

If you do everything right, if you pray, if you read your Bible, go to church, everything always turns out your way.

The real God cannot be tamed or boxed in.

You can't control him by a formula.

You can't force your own personal covenant on him.

You can't bind him to your own rules.

The real God reserves the right to clobber you and cripple you for the rest of your life if it means he can save you.

Who could make up a God like that?

Remember C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia?

Lucy asks, referring to Aslan, the Christ figure, is he safe?

The real God reserves the right to clobber you and cripple you for the rest of your life if it means he can save you.

Safe?

Who said anything about safe?

He's not safe, but he's good.

He's the king, I tell you.

On the other hand, in John chapter 11, Jesus approaches the tomb of Lazarus.

He's going to use the suffering and pain of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha for great purposes, eternal purposes.

But when he moves closer to the tomb and he sees the pain of Mary and Martha, the Bible says in John 11, 38, that Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.

Theologians are in a quandary here.

They do not know how to translate this because deeply moved typically means to snort and to bellow with anger, and it usually is used in association with animals.

So when Jesus moves, yes, Jesus weeps, he's sad, there's compassion, but when he gets closer to the tomb, he's mad, he's snorting, he's angry at what?

At the damage sin has caused.

He's mad at injustice and so should we.

But he's also probably angry at the fact that there will be thousands of funerals after Lazarus' funeral and death that he will not be able or not be willing to interrupt.

So yes, God uses suffering, but he's in no way detached from it.

As with Job, he gives us a prevailing presence and becomes the revealer and the comforter in the midst of it all.

But the point is, you cannot tame God.

You cannot live in such a way as to never suffer.

It's impossible.

You seldom know the mind of God unless he chooses to reveal it to you.

Chances are high that seldom will he give you all the information.

So now think about this.

You're going to do your business with God alone.

The most important struggles of your life, you're going to go at it alone.

If you've not invested in a relationship with God, you're always going to feel alone.

But second, God will show up and he will show up with just enough power as to not overwhelm you.

He will draw you, but he will not overwhelm you.

So therefore, there will be times when you try to tame God and you want to know everything about God and what he's doing.

And it's going to be impossible because you can't.

Define God in terms that are exact, unless God chooses to reveal to you, which he has through the scripture.

That's why we say that a person who's not falling apart usually has a Bible that is.

In that scripture and in that relationship, God will give you some information, but you'll never be able to box him in and say, God always responds this way to the circumstances of my life.

That brings us to where we're going in Jacob.

God has to wrestle us into the transformed life rather than comfort us into the transformed life.

God has to wrestle us into the transformed life rather than comfort us into the transformed life.

When did Jacob, this is where the story gets really good, stay focused, when did Jacob discover who it was he was really wrestling?

In verse 28, the cat is out of the bag.

Then the man said, the man is God, remember, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you've struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.

At the beginning, Jacob doesn't know who he's wrestling with, but at the end he knows it's God.

But when did the penny drop?

When did Jacob the wrestler realize he was wrestling God?

And the answer is the blinders fell off in verse 25.

When the man saw he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Now you think about that.

In the Hebrew, by the way, this word for touched is the slightest, the slightest nudge.

It's so soft.

Very, very Gentile.

So Jacob wrestles to a draw, a tie.

with God himself, and then God just reaches down and touches him.

Suddenly, Jacob realizes that whoever he's wrestling could incinerate him just like that, could annihilate him at any moment.

Then notice what happens.

Just as Jacob first wrestles the man to get free...

Now Jacob is wrestling the man.

He turns to be the aggressor.

Now he's holding on.

He's not wanting to get free.

Now he's holding on and refuses to let the man go.

Then in verse 26, the man said, let me go for it is daybreak.

The change in Jacob happened in the moment of pain and weakness.

At first he's wrestling to free himself, but when his hip socket is touched and suddenly he realized that this is God who can incinerate him, now he won't let God go.

In other words, he's not going to let God go.

This is a God who wants to bless you.

He wants to change your life, but to do that, he's got to bop you in the head.

He has to wake you up to who you are and to who he really is.

In other words, he's going to have to wrestle you.

Every single one of us knows this is true.

We learn very little in pleasure and so much in pain.

I remember years ago reading, I can't remember who wrote it, I think it's anonymous, these inward trials I employ from pride and self to set you free, to break the schemes of earthly joy that thou may find thine all in me.

So God comes to us best in our weakness.

In verse 24, Jacob, the Bible says, was left alone and the man wrestled with him till daybreak.

Now what's really interesting here is in the Hebrew language, it actually says, a man came and Jacobed with Jacob, because Jacob's name means to wrestle.

So somebody has come now and is out Jacobing Jacob, is out wrestling Jacob, who's always stretching, always scheming, always striving.

So when we come to Genesis 32, Jacob thinks his problem throughout his entire life has been Esau.

So he thinks he's been wrestling with Esau for the birthright and the blessing and everything else.

He thinks the climax of his life is going to happen the next day when he faces off one on one with Esau.

So God shows up the night before and basically says to Jacob, no, the climax of your life is tonight.

You've not been wrestling with Esau.

You've been wrestling with me your entire life.

I am the center of your struggle.

You've had a God-shaped hole in your heart, and you've been trying to strive and to fill it with significance, with the birthright, with love, with Rachel, with wealth.

If I can just out-wealth Esau." So God shows up, and this is the combative point in Jacob's life.

Now let me pause again.

Do you know what Jacob's problem really is?

He's a nominal Christian.

He's like the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christians who sit in churches every weekend.

Do you know what that is?

Do you know what a nominal Christian is?

He talks to God.

He believes in God.

He seeks the blessings of God.

But until God knocks him in the head, he doesn't get it.

In verse 26, then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak, but Jacob replied, I will not let you go until you bless me.

Now remember, before the wrestling match, Jacob's attitude was this, these are the things I need.

God, I need you to help me get these things.

Then suddenly his attitude changes because in the Hebrew, in the original language, here's what Jacob says in verse 26.

I will not let you go until you bless me with you.

Until you bless me with you.

So suddenly, Jacob doesn't want, and the reason he's hanging on now, at first he's trying to fight to get loose.

Now he's hanging on for dear life because it's dawned on him, this is what I've really wanted all my life, to be this close in proximity to God.

It really is amazing.

I have prayed with so many people near the end of their lives.

I've been in so many hospitals, and I have been with families.

I've noticed that there's so many families who speak the Christianese.

Oh yes, my brother or my sister or my mother or my father, they're going to a better place.

They're going to see their loved ones.

But the more I'm around the family, the more I realize they have no idea who God really is or who Christ is.

They just have this general idea that there's a God and there's a place and it's going to be better.

But I've started over the course of my life to notice the difference between the people who have the personal relationship with God and those who don't.

Those who have the personal relationship with God don't talk of going to a better place, don't talk of going to see someone they haven't seen in a while.

You know what they talk about?

They talk about going to be with Jesus.

The one they've known all their lives.

They can't wait to be in the presence of God himself.

That's how you know they've moved past this nominal idea, general idea, into a personal relationship.

Suddenly, Jacob gets it, but only after God whacks him.

You are the beauty and the blessing that I've been chasing all my life.

Your approval, your riches, your love and acceptance, that's what I want.

It's amazing, Jacob knows that he's holding onto someone that could incinerate him at any moment, and yet he won't let go.

What's more surprising is the angel of the Lord of the pre-incarnate Christ actually says to him, let me go for it's daybreak.

You read that, you think, let me go.

That's like a lion saying to a baby in pallet, let me go.

Can you imagine that?

No, you can't.

Jacob is saying, even if I see your face and die, I don't care.

Nothing in my life is working.

This is what I need.

There's no way I'm letting you go.

Even if it kills me, I can't go back now to the old life.

If I don't have you, I don't have anything.

Now, how does God reach Jacob?

Weakness, yes, but whose weakness?

Look again at verse 28.

Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you've struggled with God and with humans that have overcome or have prevailed.

What?

Jacob prevailed over God?

It says that.

God stands over Jacob and says, winner, winner, chicken dinner.

How does that happen?

Jacob can't believe his life is spared.

He's shocked that all he got was a blow that woke him up.

Instead of God incinerating him.

How can God say to me that I have trampled on men and God all my life and then suddenly stand over me and declare me the winner?

Now we're getting somewhere.

Remember we're in this series called Archetypes and Origins?

Is Jacob an archetype?

Oh yeah.

In a way that most of us have never considered.

In fact, I would dare say that most people never use Jacob as an archetype, as an origin, as someone who foreshadows the coming of Christ.

But here's where the rubber hits the road, folks.

Jacob points to the ultimate place where God won through losing, where he triumphed through defeat.

Look at this, this is amazing.

Verse 25, when the man, that is God, saw that he could not overpower him.

What?

Now, in absolute terms, of course God can overpower Jacob.

He barely touched his hip and lamed him for the rest of his life.

It's true.

Jacob will walk with a limp for the rest of his life after this encounter.

What's going on here?

You know, when Delaney was a little boy, and he's not so little anymore, but he was like eight years old, he loved to wrestle.

The problem was he was like 40 pounds and I was 210 pounds.

So how could I wrestle Delaney?

without killing him?

The answer, of course, is you don't use all your weight.

I would make myself weak by putting all my weight, my knees and my hands on the floor, and then letting him have his way.

I wouldn't kill him, but I would still wrestle with him.

This is the point God is making.

This is the point of the story of Jacob.

God made himself weak so that he failed on purpose to overpower Jacob.

Because had he overpowered Jacob, he could have killed him.

But that's not what God wants.

God wants salvation, not annihilation.

So God came in weakness as to not destroy Jacob, but to save him.

In losing to Jacob, God won.

Had God won, he would have not gotten what he really wanted, a transformed heart, an God failed in order to win, because he lost, he won.

Now, what does that remind you of in theological terms?

Well, it reminds you of Philippians 2.

Speaking of Jesus Christ, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but rather he made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being found in human likeness, in other words weakness, and being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even on the cross.

Now stay with me.

I know we've been everywhere, but we've got to get this, because you have to ask yourself some questions before we end this.

Number one, are you waiting for God to dazzle you?

Let me show you the way God dazzles.

The most powerful entity possible, the creator of all that is.

allows what he himself created to destroy him.

He allows Jacob to win the wrestling match to save him.

God loses so that he can win a transformed heart.

If you want God to dazzle you, here's how he's going to do it.

God allows men to overcome him in order that he might save them.

No man could ever come up with this.

He takes on the form of a servant.

He dies, he allows the creature to destroy the creator as a way to compel through sacrificial love.

Have you ever read Matthew 12?

It's a fascinating chapter.

Jesus has just healed a blind and mute demon possessed man.

He's healed a man with a withered hand.

Right after doing that, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law come to him and they say this in verse 26.

Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.

He just healed a blind and a mute demon possessed man.

He healed a man with a withered hand.

There's a lot of other signs and wonders he's performed.

And then the Pharisees come and say, we want a sign for you.

Here's Jesus' answer.

A wicked and adulterous generation asked for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now notice, that's where Jesus stops.

He doesn't say anything about the great fish spitting Jonah out on the shore and there's a resurrection.

No, he says the only sign you're going to be given is that like Jonah, the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

What's he saying?

The sign you're going to get is not strength, it's going to be weakness.

He's going to allow men to kill him.

What is the sign?

The most powerful God, the only God, the most powerful entity, the creator of all things, is going to make himself weak.

Why?

Let me read the quote again.

You desired man's free love that he should follow you freely, enticed and taken captive by sacrificial love.

Satan's power coerces and dazzles.

God's power, by contrast, is internal and non-coercive.

In the Gospel story, God makes himself weak and vulnerable for one purpose, that human beings can choose freely for themselves what to do with him.

Now, here's the second question.

Are you waiting for someone else to fight the battles of your life?

Remember we said you've got to do it one-on-one with God.

No pastor can fight it for you.

No friend, no relative, no small group.

No accountability partner.

You got to do your business with God, and the most important events of your life, you'll face alone, and you will have to wrestle God on your own.

God will have to deal with you one-on-one to get you to save you, to transform you.

It usually means he's got to clobber you in the head.

He's got to get you in the vice grip.

He wounds you, however, to save you.

D.L. Moody was a great American preacher, pastor, and his little girl asked him one time, Daddy, why did Jesus have to die?

D.L. Moody said this, you see that big truck over there?

Would you rather the truck run over you or the shadow run over you?

The little girl said, well, obviously the shadow because it wouldn't hurt so much.

He looked at his little girl and said, the truck of God's justice ran over Jesus, so only the shadow would run over you.

In other words, Jesus died so that it would wound you without destroying you.

Jesus died so that in his relationship with you, he may wound you without destroying you.

Just remember during the course of your life, God will have to clobber you, but when he comes to you, he will weaken himself.

He will not overwhelm you with his power.

He will come to you in weakness.

He will come to you in power.

He will come to you in power.

His goal is a heart of transformation, not annihilation.

He will wrestle you again and again, but he wants you to prevail.

He wants you to stand up and realize that only he can give you what you're looking for in every area of your life.

He will never overpower you, but he will wound you.

And he will do that to wake you up in losing, God wins.

If it wakes you up, if he comes to you in weakness and doesn't overwhelm you, but gives you just enough to wake you up, then ultimately God has won in his weakness.

The second thing is because Jesus became weak, he too became strong though, right?

His power now cleanses us and transforms our hearts.

What happened after Jesus humbled himself in weakness?

He was exalted.

The rest of Philippians chapter two in verse nine says, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, when he clobbers you and you come to the end of yourself and realize who he is and what he's doing, if you humble yourself and allow yourself, allow yourself to be humbled by what he could do to you, you with me?

Let me say that again.

When he clobbers you and you come to the end of yourself and you realize who he is and who you are and what he could do to you, in fact, what we all deserve.

At that moment, when you realize he has come to you in weakness, you will be drawn to God who weakens himself in order to save you.

Then you will grab hold of him and you will not let go.

And then when you do that, you will be drawn to God.

He will bless you with himself and you will be made strong.

As you grab onto him through life and refuse to let him go, he will continue to bless you again and again and again.

In your weakness and humility and submission, you too, like Jacob, will be lifted up.

Folks, that's the gospel.

That is the gospel right there.

You got to do business with God on your own.

He will wound you but not overwhelm you.

You can't tame God.

He'll do the way he wants to work.

He's going to do his thing.

He's going to do whatever it takes and he's got the goods on you.

Ultimately, we have to be pounded into a transformed heart, not given a convenient life and not a point where God would make everything easy.

We learn very few things in our pleasure and so much more in our pain.

I want you to notice how the passage closes.

The Bible says, the sun rose above him, that's Jacob, as he passed Peniel and he was limping because of his hip.

In the story of Jacob, the sun had been rising on Jacob, but now the sun is setting.

He leaves Peniel with a limp, but he's limping with a smile.

because the limp is a small price to pay for eternity.

Father, thank you for your goodness and your willingness to wound us when we need it.

Help us to recognize how you came in weakness, how you gave your life for us.

And in being wounded, we now can enter into a relationship where you may have to wound us, but you will never overwhelm or power us, overpower us.

And when the wounds come, they're there to save us.

Help us to see how Jacob is an archetype of Christ himself, of how we can look into a future in which God wanted to intervene.

Jacob's wrestling with God, revealing to us God's willingness to do whatever it takes to help those of us who are far from God to come near in order that He could transform us from the inside out and grant us all the things that our heart deeply searches for, that those things would be found in Him.

In Christ's name, amen.