The Limp of Faith

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

Let me ask God for our blessing as we look at God’s Word together. Let’s bring it. Heavenly Father, we do thank you, Lord, for this evening, for this morning time that you’ve given us. And Lord, we do thank you again, Lord, for your, just for your people. Thank you that we get to worship together in this place. And we thank you that we get to sit under your Word together as well. So Father, we give you thanks, Lord, for this time. We know that without your spirit, Lord, this Word is closed to us. And so we do ask, Lord, for your blessing. And maybe like Samuel in the Bible, Lord, that we would respond just like he did when he said, speak for your servants listening. We thank you in Christ’s name. What is a joy to be back.

I always appreciate the opportunity to come and preach and connect with people that we’ve known as well. But if you’ve got your Bibles, you know we are looking at Genesis 32. Actually, I do need someone to help me read my scripture passage for me. I completely forgot. Can I get somebody to do that for me?

I will do so. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants and his 11 children and crossed the Ford of the Jabbaq. He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket and Jacob’s hip was put out of his joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, let me go for the day is broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob, then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.

For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you asked my name and there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place, Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been delivered. Then the sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.

Therefore to this day, the people of Israel did not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. Well, you’ve heard the word of God preached to you, read to you. And I want you to keep your Bibles open in Genesis 32 because you’re kind of dropping in into the middle of a story. But before we drop into the middle of this story, let me drop you into a middle of another story that maybe can and then lead us back to this. So I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia.

Anybody across the Narnia? I’m thinking about the book, the book, The Silver Chair. I think it’s a sixth book in that series. So if you’re familiar with the story of Chronicles of Narnia, the story of Aslan and the children, in book six, there’s a character named Jill. And Jill has been blown back into Narnia. So she’s blown back to Narnia. She finds herself on this mountain. And on this mountain, she finds herself also beside a bubbling, clear stream. And she is extremely thirsty. She’s extremely thirsty. And she approaches the river and between her and the river, there’s a lion. The lion, Aslan’s lion, is just there and she stops.

Right? And the lion asks this question, are you not thirsty? And she said, I’m dying of thirst. And he says, well, come and drink. And then she says, may I could you go away for a while while I do?

And the lion just growls. And Lewis basically says, well, Jill might as well have asked the whole mountain to move away for her convenience. And then Jill asked the question, well, do you eat girls? And Aslan says, I’ve swallowed up boys and girls, men and women, emperors and rulers, kingdoms and realms. And of course Jill says, oh dear, I guess I must go find another stream somewhere else. And Aslan says, there is no other stream. And so here’s the question, right?

I think that Lewis is raising and I want us to kind of use that to bring us back to this text. What if what is between you and the river that is going to quench your thirst is a lion? Or if you go back to the book of Genesis, what if the obstacle between you and blessing, between you and the end of your fears, distresses, anxieties, what if that which is between you and that is God himself? If you’re asking that question, then you are where Jacob is at. Because in Genesis 32, the story of Jacob is, is what you have here in this passage is this wrestling. It’s what I would argue is when grace shows up in the life of a fool, in the life of someone who has basically made a mess of things. And there at the, at that place is where he encounters God. But grace, as you can tell from the text, does not come into Jacob’s life like a flowing stream.

It comes by a muddy river. It doesn’t come with someone putting their arms around you, telling you it’s going to be okay. It’s coming as a chokehold around your neck. And you should be asking the question, how in the world, how in the world can that be a good thing? How can that even be a gracious thing? And I’m going to say that this is the most gracious thing the Lord God could have done for Jacob. And sometimes it is the one of the most gracious things that God can do for you and me. One author, one commentator calls this, this is a defeat, but it’s a magnificent defeat.

Right? Because we live in a culture that loves to celebrate successes, but we score and defeat. But here’s the thing, can that defeat, just like you have in this text, be a good thing? And I’m going to say 100% yes. Yes.

Right? So that’s the question I want to say, like how do we see grace show up in this text? I’m going to look at this in the three headings. First, it’s a different kind of meeting, a different sort of meeting with God.

Not a typical one, but a different one. Secondly, it’s a different sort of name that is given by God. And then thirdly is a different kind of walk that Jacob is left with after he’s encountered with God. All right? So we’re going to look at a different meeting, a different name, and a different walk. Because at the end of the story, Jacob is limping out of this story.

All right? So if you’ve got your Bibles, we’re dropping in the middle of the story. So if you need to back up a little bit, but the whole story of Jacob begins back in Genesis 25.

And in the whole story of Genesis 25, if you know anything about the story of Jacob, one thing you need to know that he is a schemer, a trickster. Right? One, his name means heal-grabber. Someone who’s always holding on.

Right? He is what you could say a self-made man, a go-getter. And it is on mind-stepping on other people to do it. So if you go back to 25 and you read, you realize that he has tricked his brother, lied to his father, played a really weird, interesting game with his, what, with Laban, his uncle, who eventually becomes his father-in-law. Right?

He ends up with two wives, buy one, get one for free. Right? I mean, he’s got all, I mean, he’s, right, but so by the time you get to this text, right? He has one son that he has been longing and praying for, but he ends up with eleven. Okay? So all of this has been part of Jacob’s life until you get here.

But here’s the thing. When you get into chapter 32, it’s been twenty years since Jacob first tricked his brother, Esau, out of the blessing, out of his birthright. And now in 32, right, Jacob is coming back into the land. And he is kind of testing the waters a little bit.

I wonder what, what Esau is like. Right? And so he sends a message, very deferential, very humble, trying to say, you know, he sends a messenger to his brother. Right? So he’s just like sending an email, right? Sending an email just to kind of get a feel for, like, hey, I’m coming back just to let you know.

Right? And the message he gets back is Esau is coming, and Esau is coming with four hundred men. The last time in twenty-five, Esau had vowed to kill him. Jacob had to deal with one. Now he’s got to deal with four hundred plus one.

Okay? So everything that’s going on in Jacob’s mind at this point, if you look up in 32 verse six and seven, it says that Jacob was afraid. He was afraid, and he was greatly distressed.

Right? Because now he’s not just fearing for his life. He’s got two wives, he’s got maid servants, he’s got a bunch of kids. He’s got all these things. And so he’s wondering, what am I going to do? How am I going to deal with it?

And so at the beginning of the story, and so in verse twenty-two, what Jacob has done, right, leading up to this point, he has sent a bunch of tribute, trying to placate his older brother. Right? And you can look up at that list. I mean, he’s got forty donkeys, we have cows, I mean, right? He’s sending him all kinds of things.

Right? He’s sending him all my steaks. He’s sending, I mean, he’s just sending all kinds of stuff, trying to get his brother to at least not be angry, because that’s what he thinks he’s coming to do.

He’s to kill him. And so what he has here at the beginning of this story is Jacob still thinks he has not done enough. And so he’s still afraid. He’s still fearful. He’s greatly distressed. And so at the beginning here in verse twenty-two, at this river, this river is a fast-moving river, but there’s a place, a fort, which is fairly shallow. And so Jacob sends his wife and his children, and what you have is Jacob is there on the banks of that river, of a J-book, all alone. Right? The Bible is incredibly economical, right, in terms of how it describes these things.

But you have to picture this in your mind. It’s pitch dark. He is sitting by a muddy river. Why is Jacob there all alone? Because verse twenty-two, verse twenty-three tells us that he has sent everybody on ahead.

Right? He’s basically sent him all away, because he’s fearful. And Jacob waits. Is he praying? Is he wondering? Is he just saying, I’m here just, I’m accepting my fate.

This is where I am. What happens, happens. And so what is he expecting to happen? Well, guess what? In the middle of the pitch darkness, somebody attacks him. All right? And you have, and the Bible again, it says very, very little, because it just says they wrestle and they wrestle until daybreak.

That’s a long time. I mean, they’re rolling about in the mud with this unknown assailant that he cannot see, and they’re duking it out on the banks of the river. Now, who does Jacob think he is? Who do you think this is? This is his brother Esau, Frederick Buechner, who was a novelist who reimagines this story. In his book, The Son of Laughter, right? He basically tries to imagine what could be going through Jacob’s head as to who this is. Could this be his brother Esau?

Right? He has basically wiped out my family. I’m all that’s left. And he’s after me now. Is that who this is, he thinks he is? Because it’s dark, but you have to know, right?

And this is why this is interesting. The word there to wrestle is the word to grapple. Or literally in the Hebrew, it means to get dusty, to get dirty. So imagine for a second, not looking at it from Jacob’s side, because the one who is wrestling, what commentators notice and talk about this text is that this is what we call a theophany, an appearing, a God appearing in the Old Testament. Often described as the angel of the Lord happens in multiple places in other parts of Scripture. Joshua, for example, sees one. Gideon sees one. Samson’s mother in the book of Judges, in Judges 13, sees someone like this. But in all of those described as the angel of the Lord, it’s really the Lord himself. Pre-incarnation, before coming in the person of Jesus, in the Old Testament, you have these glimpses, these snapshots, if you will, sudden appearances.

And this is one of them. And where you have in this text is that this is actually God himself. God himself, you could say, is getting dusty, getting dirty, getting muddy with Jacob at the book of the river, at the fort of the river Jacob. What I want you to imagine is to say that you have a God, because up to this point, you should come away saying, Jacob is not a nice guy. He’s not.

Right? I mean, you would say Abraham, well, he’s had some of his foibles, you know, he made some mistakes. Isaac, very obedient, maybe a bit passive. But Jacob is not a nice guy.

And so when you get to this text, what you should be expecting is a form of judgment. But you’ll have to know that all this time that God has been pursuing Jacob over and over and over again. If Jacob has been a has been a heal grabber, a schemer, someone who has been trying to call his way to the top. What Jacob needs to learn, what Jacob needs to know, that he’s clawing for something, grabbing on grasping for something that was already promised by God. And he needed to know that. Jacob needed to know that. That he was grasping for the things that were already his, not because of his scheming, but because God was going to be faithful to fulfill the promise that he had made to his grandfather Abraham. And he needed to know that. And so when God is willing to go and get down and dirty, if you will, in the river, on the river, on the side of the river, in order to get Jacob’s attention, he does it.

He does it. And that’s what you have here in this story, right? For us, it’s a picture of God that we find maybe a little disturbing because we want the comfort. We want the God to come to say it’s going to be okay. We don’t want the God whose arm around us like in a half Nelson or something.

That just means out of place. But that’s what Jacob needed. And that’s what Jacob gets. And so that’s why in this story you have this.

The surprising thing, of course, is that it says here in verse 34, 35, that it says that they battled, and you would say, wait a minute, if this is God, why does this not end in like 30 seconds? Why the whole night long? Right?

Why? And you get to the point here, in verses 25 here, whenever it says that when Jacob is wrestling, it says that the man that he was wrestling with does not prevail, but then with one touch, he throws the socket and his thigh out of joint. And so at the end of the day, it’s almost like he’s keeping it in reserve. You know, it’s kind of like the dad who’s wrestling his son. And his son thinks, I’m going to beat my dad.

He thinks that he’s going to do it. And all the dad’s got to do is just flex a little bit. It’s a little bit like that. It’s almost as an appearance of winning, but that’s not how this story is going to end. This story is not going to end with Jacob being victorious. And so when you get here to verses 20, 25 and 26, what you have is not Jacob holding on in order to beat this guy. He’s holding on to this man, like a man, like a drowning man who is just trying to survive.

Because Jacob needs to be brought to that point. The socket of the thigh, they said, is probably the strongest muscle. It’s probably one of the strongest muscles in your body. And so where Jacob is hurt is at where he is strongest. And so when you get to the middle of this story and he’s just clinging on to this man, you have to know that Jacob is defeated. He’s defeated, but he’s not going to let go. Right?

He’s not going to let go. So when you get to the middle of the story, right? So that’s the first point. We say that this is a different sort of meeting. Not a meeting. It’s a gracious one, but it’s one where God is getting down in dusty with Jacob. But secondly, you see this thing that what leads to is that Jacob gets a different name.

But you have to understand the background, right? So he’s clinging on to this man and he says, I will. And the man says, it’s dawn or the darkness or the darkness is over. That’s what he says. He says, let me go. Right now, the angel of the Lord is not saying this because he said, hey, it’s six a.m.

I got I got places to go, people to see other people to wrestle. You know, that’s that’s not why. OK. All right. The whole point here in this story is is you have to understand that in the whole story of the Bible.

Has anyone ever seen the face of God, unobscured and lived? No. No.

No. The angel is telling Jacob, if you don’t let me go, you are going to die. Right? That’s what’s going to happen. And so when Jacob, so so so when Jacob is holding on and the angel tells him this. Jacob, all Jacob wants. He said, is this as look, there’s something going on here. Right at this point in the story, you have to know that Jacob has no idea what all this is. He just knows that there’s something different about this meeting.

There’s something unique about this man. Right now, it gets to the end of the story. He says, I have seen the face of God and and and and have survived. But he knows he doesn’t know what. But he knows that something. One commentator says, you know, sometimes a lot of times we’re not in our relationship with the with the Lord.

Sometimes it’s like that. Right? It’s the it’s the it’s the it’s like you have no idea what God is doing.

Right? A lot of times God seems to act in a straightforward way. But sometimes things are opaque. God almost seems a little bit wild and a little dangerous.

But you know, there’s something there is blessing at the end of it. I love what what what commentator says. He says he says sometimes it’s it’s it’s it’s like you telling yourself. It’s like I have no idea what’s going on. But I know that there is a blessing in here somewhere. And I’m going to hold on until I find out what that is. I love that.

Right. I love that because that is that is often what the life of faith looks like. Isn’t it? It’s you just clinging on. And that’s what Jacob is doing. He’s clinging on. But you just know that it’s not just about the clinging because you’ve got to understand what the conversation is because at this point in the story. He asks him his name.

Now that might seem rather insignificant. But in the story on Jacob’s story, the last time that was asked was asked by his father, Isaac. And at that point, Jacob was dressed up in his brother’s clothes. And he lied. He said, I am Esau. And what happens in that story is he receives the blessing, but a blessing that was meant for Esau, not for Jacob. So when he is asked that question again, Jacob has to say who he really is.

The name Jacob, like I said, it means Hugh grabber. It’s interesting in later on in Jeremiah 17, verse nine, whenever there’s a famous word where he talks about the heart, when I say the heart is deceitful, who can understand it? I don’t even know this, but whenever it says the heart is deceitful, that word deceitful is the word Jacob. The heart is Jacob.

Right. So when here, when Jacob is answering the question, he says, my name is Jacob. My name is deceit. My name is Schema. My name is trickster. My name is conniver.

That’s who I am. And Jacob has to say that. Right. Because at this point, you got to imagine Jacob says, there is no way. There is no way that I’m going to go.

I’m going to leave blessed out of this. I’m done. I’m crippled. This person knows exactly who I am. He knows exactly what I’ve done. I’m back in that tent with my father. I’m back in my uncle’s tricking my uncle.

I am there again, scheme me against my brother. All of those things. That’s who I am. But here’s the miracle of miracles, right?

Because in the story, what happens? Your name is not Jacob, not anymore. Right. It says your name shall be Israel.

The name Israel is one who contends or one who strives. Right. Jacob, you’re no longer going to be a trickster. You are going to be a wrestler. That’s what you are. Right. And you would say, is that?

Odd. Is that? Is that what it means to be blessed? And that’s exactly what it is because they in the story, when he gets a new name, you also need to know that that becomes the name that is then forever used whenever describing the people of Israel.

Right. Because you don’t hear after this. You never hear the Abrahamites or the Isaac guides. But you hear Israelites. Right.

The name that is taken and used to denote the people of God from then on is the name of this guy. Right. I mean, it’s the one that you would pick that you would say is the least.

But it’s the one that you look at his life and you would say. There is no basis for why God would pursue that man. And that’s what the people of Israel say.

There is no reason why God would make us a people. The same principle. And that’s what you have at the end of that in the middle of the story is he gets a new name. But thirdly, and finally, it also says that what Jacob doesn’t leave only with a new name. But Jacob leaves with a new limp. Right. Because this limp is ongoing. Right.

So in verses 31 into 32, it says that as Abraham leaves, he is blessed. You have no idea. You have no idea what was said. What was the blessing?

Nothing. It just says he blessed him. And then he just disappears. But at the end of the story, what you what you meet, what you encounter is a limping Jacob. And it says that he lives. It’s it’s it’s a limp that he walks with the rest of his life. His encounter with God. Leaves him broken.

And that’s the best thing for Jacob. I don’t know about you. I know we all in some degree or other.

We we live with a limp. But I don’t know whether you would say that that is being blessed. In the God’s economy. Blessing.

And bruising go together. Only in God’s economy. Right. Because for us, we would say in one sense, Jacob is less healthier. When he leaves this story there when he first began physically. But he’s blessed at the end. He’s not at the beginning. Jacob has encountered God in a way that he would never never again.

This word wrestle that’s used here is never used anywhere else in the Old Testament. It’s unique, special. And I think it’s meant to highlight something. Right. So when you get to the end of the story and you see a limping Jacob, you need you need to know that it’s that it’s that he is blessed. But here’s an interesting thing. Right. At the end in verse 32, it doesn’t just say that Jacob is limping.

We we tend to in Western culture like to think of this very much in individual terms. But notice that the limp is owned. By everybody. Right.

All of God’s people at the end here, they all say they all commit to not eating. Yeah, it says the sinew of the sinew of the thigh. You know, this is not like the tendon. Right. This is like the, you know, like if you’re thinking of a cow, like a tenderloin. Right.

This is like this is like the filet mignon. Right. It’s a good stuff. Right. The tender meat. Right. The part that’s the most tender. That’s the one they say we will not eat.

It. Other words, everybody shares in the limp. It’s owned by the whole covenant community, by all of God’s people. You and our eye in some way own each other’s lip. The weaknesses that we have. Our hours, but it’s one that shared.

And that is also only true within the church. How do we bring all of this back? I don’t know. And this is probably the surprising thing, right? Because when you get to these things, you get to the story, you need to know. That God has at what at some point allowed himself to be overcome, to be prevailed upon.

When you get in New Testament, you have the story of a God who was raised. Relentless in his pursuit. Even as Paul would say, all the way to the cross. He didn’t let go. He got down into the mud. He got down into the dirt all the way. Whatever it took. God did it.

I did it in the person of his son. Paul would later say that it has to do with the fact that Jesus was crucified in weakness, but now lives the power of God. Just like the, just like the God in Genesis 32, who goes all the way and gets muddy, who gets prevailed upon, who dukes it out a whole night. You have in the New Testament, a God who went all the way to the cross.

Who said, I know one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. And that’s what Jesus did. And that’s what Jesus did. He went all the way, not went way further than the muddy bank of the upper river. But all the way to the cross was prevailed upon. Gave himself into the hands of sinful men, Peter would say. But then was raised in glory. Was it a defeat? Magnificent defeat.

Just like you have in this story. So my invitation to you this morning. Consider your limp. Ask the Lord, can bruising and blessing go together? Is there such thing as a magnificent defeat?

Do I scorn my weaknesses? Am I, or is that the very place? The very reminder. Of where we meet God. If you are there, then you are closer to where Jacob is as we have in our story.

Let me close. Yesterday was graduation at the school that Lindsay and I both teach. And you know, in graduation, one of the things, of course everybody does, it tells everybody, you know, everybody’s telling each other just how great they are.

Right? That’s what we do. And I don’t want to be the half, the glass half empty guy, right?

Because I’m listening to all of this and it’s like, I know these people. And there’s always the tendency in us, right? And look, you know, graduation is graduation and it’s one of the things we do, right? We want to remember the good things and we overlook the not so good. That’s what we do in human terms. But I was preparing for this sermon and I was reflecting on that, you know, God doesn’t overlook your weaknesses.

Right? You stare God face to face, just like Jacob. God looks at you and asks you your name. What is your name?

Who are you? Right? And you lay it all out. You’re not only highlighting the good stuff like a graduation. Everything comes out. And you know what the good news of that is?

You know what the sweet words that Jesus says to you? That’s not who you are. Not anymore. Not anymore. You have a new name now. Child of the living God.

That’s who you are. Live to that. That’s great. Father, we do thank you Lord for this text and we do thank you again Lord for the, just the good news that is there.

Father, we do thank God that you are a living God. You are always relentless in the pursuit of us. Lord, you pursued a conniving trickster like Jacob all the way down to the muddy banks of a river.

Not only to stand from afar, but to get down into the mud. Lord, we do thank you God that we have a God just like that. You have pursued us in that way. And Father, I pray that we all of us may live to our new identity in Christ. To live up to that which we already are because we bear the new name. The name that you have given to us that only you can give us because you have loved us and have pursued us and have won us. We thank you again Lord for that good news and we celebrate that even that this morning. We thank you in Christ’s name. Amen. Let’s wait and see.