Let's get our Bibles tonight and hopefully we can... It won't take too terribly long, but I want us to look tonight at Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32, as we look at Jacob as he begins to set his direction and head towards home. He's setting himself up to encounter his brother Esau, which they officially will meet in chapter 33, but in this chapter we find several things of importance. We find Jacob being met with some angels here right at the first, the company of the Lord. We find Jacob sending forward to Esau and somewhat trying to prepare the way for the meeting and a prayer of Jacob and then we see this plan of Jacob and finally we see this Israel being born in Jacob for his identity changes when he actually encounters God. for the first time in this intimate way in the closing verses. So I will, I want to just go ahead and read it in its entirety and then I want to hit the highlights and draw our spiritual applications away from it. Genesis 32, beginning in verse number 1, the Word of God says, Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's camp. So he called the name of that place Mahanim. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Eden, instructing them, Thus you shall say to my lord Esau, Thus says your servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now. donkeys, flocks, male servants and female servants. I have sent to tell my Lord in order that I may find favor in your sight. And the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau and he is coming to meet you and there are 400 men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two camps thinking If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your kinsmen or kindred that I may do you good, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For only, or with only my staff I crossed this Jordan and now I've become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau, 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milking camels and their calves, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys. These he handed over to his servant. Every drove by itself and said to his servants, pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove. He instructed the first, when Esau my brother greets you and asks you to whom do you belong, where are you going and whose are these ahead of you? Then you shall say, they belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my Lord Esau and moreover he is behind us. He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who follow the droves, you shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him and you shall say, Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us. For he thought I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me." So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 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. And when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of 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 ask 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. The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip, and therefore to this day the people of Israel do 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." Let us go to the Lord in prayer tonight. Dear Father, as we've come to this time, Lord, just study Your Word. I'd ask that You would open up our hearts and our minds to see this life of Jacob, to see him as he is naturally afraid of his brother, but also to see the deliverance and the promise of prosperity that You have given him. And Lord, we see this blessing that You place upon him in naming. Him Israel. And Father, tonight may we see Your grace and Your steadfast mercy towards us even in this passage tonight. For it's in Christ's name we ask these things. Amen. Amen. So here we have this opening, this reminder that, if you all recall, Jacob had left out from the presence of Laban. If you'll remember, that he had a vision of God, that God had promised him back in Genesis 31, that he said, lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred. So God had spoke to Jacob and he had instructed him to return to his homeland, back to where he had fled from earlier. So we know that Jacob attempted to leave hurriedly. Laban caught up with him. We know that they departed on this somewhat of a truce, if you will. Here is the pile of heap, the heap of remembrance. Laban said, I'm going to stay on this side. Jacob, you stay on that side. And if either one of us cross over past this heap, past this marker, then God is going to be the judge. the covenant will be broken. So Jacob now with Laban in his past is moving forward and turning back towards home. That's where the passage opens. And we find him immediately, it seems, that not long upon his journey that the angels of God come and they meet with Jacob. That's the opening verse. The angels of God met with him. And in this meeting place, Jacob names it, this is God's camp, calling it that Mahanaim, which also means or can be described as two camps. And this imagery of two camps and this blessing of God, the last time that Jacob had had an encounter with God was at the place called Bethel. Do you remember? The house of God. Bethel was where Jacob had saw a ladder. He saw this stairway, this somewhat pathway that provided access up towards God. At the top of that ladder or at the top of that stairway was the very presence of God. God had promised Jacob that He would establish him and his offspring and that Jacob's offspring would be that door or pathway whereby man would once again have access to God. And we said that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. but also there God had promised him in Genesis 28, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. So God had promised Jacob I'm going to do this, I've set my mind on it, and I will accomplish it." And now as Jacob is now returning back to the land that had been promised to his fathers, the angels come to affirm again the promise that is made to God. And the imagery of two camps, we believe is best understood as that Jacob understands not only does he have his camp of his family, but that God had sent a camp or a host of angels. is the imagery here. Not only did Jacob has his family as a camp, but God had sent a camp of angels or heavenly hosts. to ensure Jacob's safety as he makes it home. So now he is beginning his journey, he is pressing towards the Canaan land, and he knows what is waiting him, his brother, so he sends out, in verse number three, he sends out messengers to his brother. And I'm just going to basically summarize what he says here. He basically says, look, go tell my brother that his servant Jacob has been with his laban all this time, and now he's returning home, that he is a wealthy man. Jacob is a wealthy man. I have oxen and donkey. I have all these livestocks, all these servants. I'm coming home that I might find favor in your sight. Notice the title that Jacob says. Thus you shall say to my Lord Esau, that Jacob is coming with a humility. He's coming with a bowed down, again, recognition of his mistreatment of his brother. This stands in contrast to the way in which Laban and Jacob had encountered each other. If you'll remember, when Jacob encountered Laban, he stood and basically said, I have been a just man and I have treated you well. You have prospered. Why have you dealt with me in this way? He kind of spoke of his own, if you will, prestige, his own goodness, his honor, if you will. But now we find that he approaches his brother Esau in a different way because with Laban, Jacob had been upright. But with Esau, Jacob was a deceiver. He was a cheater. And so he comes somewhat with hat in hand. seeking to find favor in the eyes of his brother. And after he has sent this message, the messengers come back and Jacob is anxiously waiting. And what news does he hear? Verse six, the messengers return saying, well, we went to your brother, but guess what? Jacob, he's coming to see you and he ain't coming by himself. He's bringing 400 men with him. The idea of this 400 men is the idea of a great host, an army. If you'll recall back when Abraham fought those kings in that land that he only had, he had less than 400, somewhere around the upper 390, I believe, plus or minus a few men. And here Esau is coming to see his brother with 400 men, and Jacob thinks, oh my goodness, he's coming to take me out. pay me back for all that I have done with him. For that's what we see in verse 7, he was greatly afraid and so what does he do? He splits up the camps of people hoping that if Esau attacks one, he will escape through the other. And it's in this moment, it's in this fear that we find Jacob going to the Lord in prayer. And interestingly enough, this is the first time we actually see Jacob praying to God, actually communing and talking with God in the form of a prayer. This is the first time, not saying this is the first time that he ever prayed, but it's the first recording of him praying to God. And up until this point, though God had spoke to him, it seems as though Jacob was not one who was familiar in maybe communicating back to God. But I want you to listen to this prayer and see it in this four parts that I want to describe to you. I've said when we speak of prayer that there's an acronym of ACTS. A-C-T-S. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. And we can actually apply that to the way in which Jacob approaches the Lord God in prayer right here. How does he begin? He begins with adoration and acknowledgement of who God is. He says in verse 9, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, he's acknowledging just as Christ said, my father who art in heaven. Jacob is doing that very thing. O God of my father Abraham and Isaac, So he opens with an adoration and acknowledgment of who God is, but then he also follows it with a confession. A confession of the promises of God towards his family, but also a confession of his own sin and unworthiness. He says, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to me, your servant. So he has this idea that you have promised me to return into my family. I'm confessing to you the promise. I'm confessing to you my unworthiness. Then he gives him a thanksgiving. He says that when I cross over, When I went over, he says what? I only had with my staff, in verse number 10, with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. God, you've blessed me, you've grown me, you've prospered me. And then he goes into supplication. He makes his request known to the Lord. He says, please now deliver me, protect me, God, from my brother Esau. Protect him from attacking my family, my children, the mothers of my children. Why, what is he pleading? Not his worthiness, but the promise of God. For you said, in verse 12, Jacob says, you said that you would do good unto me and that you would make my offspring the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for a multitude. So Jacob goes to the Lord in prayer. And now we find his plan. In verse number 13, though he's prayed to God for protection, it seems like Jacob wants to ensure and do everything that he can to ease Esau's attitude or his frustration towards him. So Jacob has a plan. I know what I'm going to do to try to soften up my brother. I'm going to shower him with gift upon gift upon gift. That's what he does in verses 13 through verse number 21. He sets aside female goats. He sets aside male goats. and lambs, and ewes, and rams, and calves, and camels, and bulls, and donkeys, and all of these things. And not only does He separate them out, but He gives them to His servants, and He gives instruction. Look, I don't want you to take everything at once. I want you all to separate yourselves. So you take the first gift, and you present it, and you tell him that this is of Jacob, his brother, and that his servant is giving this as a gift, the servant Jacob is coming unto you, Esau. And then the next one is going to do the same thing, and the next one the same thing, that again and again, over an extended period of time, Esau would see a band after band of servants and animals, servants and animals, servants and animals. Jacob is coming, your servant Jacob is coming. This is a present to you, this is a present to you. And it was his hope, in verse number 20, Jacob is saying, that I might appease him with the presents that go ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face, perhaps then he will accept me. Though God had made the promise that the older would serve the younger, Jacob here is trying to do everything he can to ensure that Esau takes him in and restores him and sees him favorably. So knowing that the encounter is ahead, having spent a night in prayer, having devised this plan and strategy to win over his brother Esau, now we find the imagery here it seems as though before that that faithful day, the night before he's to meet his brother, is when he has this magnificent encounter with God. In verse number 22, after these things have taken place, That same night, Jacob gets his family, he gets his two wives, the female servants, he gets all the children, and they cross over. He sends them across the stream, everything that he has. He's making this journey, this final stretch. Soon it will be him presenting himself before his brother Esau. And he sends them all ahead of him, and then we find in verse 24 that Jacob is left all alone. Jacob is here all alone when suddenly something takes place. Suddenly in the darkness of the night we find in verse 24 that a man comes and wrestles with Him until the breaking of the day. In this imagery we're going to find out that this mysterious man is none other than God Himself. what most scholars, and it's hard to argue against it, the idea that this is a pre-incarnate image of Christ Jesus. Just as God had manifest Himself towards Abraham, we said back then that that appeared to be an image of this foreshadowing of God coming in the form of man. And in the same way, God in the form of man finds Jacob all alone, and who is the initiator of this great struggle? I think when we think of God or Jacob wrestling with God, we think of it in that way. We think, well, you know, man, Jacob really put up a fight with God. He wrestled God down until God gave him what he desired. But I think that that's a wrong impression based upon what this passage is telling us. Because in verse number 24, we're not finding Jacob seeking out a man to wrestle or seeking out God to wrestle. But in chapter 24, Jacob thinks that he's all by himself when suddenly a man jumps on him. A man seeks him. A man begins to wrestle with him until the breaking of the day. And this struggle of God really trying to subdue Jacob goes on throughout the night until the very breaking of the day that finally, it says in verse 25, the man saw that he would not prevail against Jacob, meaning the man could not overpower Jacob, that he does what instead? That he touches his hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Jacob's ability to fight him off. And some have suggested those who have an intimate knowledge of wrestling that, you know, your hips is a very important thing of leverage when you're trying to wrestle or trying to have a gain an advantage upon somebody that he basically renders Jacob helpless. But nonetheless, Jacob does not give up. He still holds on to this man. In verse 26, And he said, the man says, let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, this is Jacob, what is your name? Or the man says, 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. And then Jacob asked him, what is your name? Tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask 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. So the sun rises, he passes on, but how is Jacob walking now? Jacob is walking with a limp because he had been touched by God, he had been rendered weak in his flesh and he was only dependent upon God's blessing and mercy upon him. So we have this imagery that God wrestled with Jacob and when Jacob would not give in to the power of God, God rendered him useless in his strength by dislocating his hip and we are told in verse 32 that from that day forward the people of Israel in respect and in commemoration of this event would no longer eat that hip socket or sinew because of this encounter. So there's a lot of things going on there, but I want to draw away some spiritual applications as we think of Israel being born. This idea of his name being changed, Jacob now has a new identity. No longer is he the cheat or the deceiver, but he is the one to whom God has subdued. God has wrestled. God has strived with him, and he is now striving with God. And in this place, Jacob acknowledges that he has seen the face of God. And what we believe takes place here is this is a conversion of Jacob. This is where he undoubtedly understands who God is, who he is in the sight of God, and he moves forward as a different man from this day going forth. Some things to think of when we think of this passage. in these somewhat three sections, thinking of Jacob's fear of Esau, thinking of his prayer, and then thinking of his encounter with God. I want to make the first spiritual application of recognizing the natural fear of facing the past seen in the life of Jacob. Man, it's difficult for us as believers. It's difficult as just human beings to go and try to correct a wrong. That's a very hard thing. We're prideful and we don't like to admit that we're wrong and it's difficult to try to seek forgiveness from those whom we've hurt. But because it is difficult does not mean that it is impossible. And we know that the Scriptures clearly teach us that forgiveness has been shown towards us in Christ and that we must also seek to forgive others around us and seek forgiveness from those whom we've harmed. So there is a sense in our personal relationships where our past can be hard to deal with. That's why Jacob is in fear. That's why Jacob is praying, because he's seeking out God's protection, because he doesn't know how his brother is going to react. But also, there is a sense where we have a natural fear of facing our past when it comes to our relationship with the Lord, too, as well. Meaning that there are many of us who allow things in our past to continue to haunt us, continue to keep us and prevent us from being what God would have us to be. Jacob could have decided, you know what? This is too difficult. I'm too afraid. I'm not going to return to my brother. I'm going to continue running. And some suggest that that was what he had in mind when God wrestles with him, that possibly he was going to break and run when he was there all by himself. We do not know for certain, but we know this, that He did in fact end up going and facing His past and restoring the relationship with His brother. And I encourage each of us that as the Scriptures command us that we too sometimes have to face our past, but also we have to sometimes forget our past knowing that in Christ Jesus our sins have been forgiven. We're also reminded in this model prayer that Jacob gives us in the middle portion of chapter 32 that our prayers should always be anchored in who God is and what He has promised. If you recall, Jacob did not appeal to his own self-worth. Instead, he humbled himself, exalted God, and prayed to God based upon God's faithfulness, not Jacob's. And I said that began with an adoration that Acts, A-C-T-S, The same way that we see the model prayer in the New Testament, but an adoration and acknowledgement of who God is, a confession of God's grace and his blessings and his mercy, a confession of our sin and our unworthiness, a thanksgiving, thank you for making us prosperous, thank you for your blessings upon us. Then we come to our time of asking God to be with us. Instead of us running in and saying, God, I need you to do this, that, and the other, Acknowledge who God is, and by the time you've gotten through those first three phases of adoration, confession, and thanksgiving, by the time it comes for your request to be made unto the Lord, you most likely have forgotten what you were going to ask because you've been caught up thanking and blessing the name of the Lord. But finally, thinking of Jacob wrestling here with God, or God in fact wrestling with Jacob, I close with this final spiritual application. That when God seeks to wrestle with us, He often injures the flesh, but He also strengthens our faith. That when we encounter God in our spiritual life, that sometimes it can feel as if it's the greatest struggle that we have ever been in in our lives. And some make the note that Jacob and God wrestled all night long. Thinking back to high school, a three or four minute wrestling match, you're exhausted. You're physically spent. And yet Jacob in his determination, I think in his stubbornness to not submit to God necessarily, but God and Jacob wrestling all night long that there was this great tug and war that went on that led to him being permanently injured, his hip being dislocated. And if God had the power to put His hip out of socket, He probably could have put His neck out of socket if He wanted it to and killed Him if He desired. But God in His grace and His mercy, He injured Jacob's flesh while healing his soul and his spirit. This encounter forever changed the way in which Jacob lived his life. Simply stated, when Jacob encountered God, His walk in life began to take on a different manner. That He left this place with a limp. Injured, yes, in the flesh, but strengthened in His faith. And as Christians today, may we also be reminded that sometimes we are stubborn in our wrestling with God, but He ultimately is the victor. He ultimately is the winner that we should throw in the towel and cry mercy before the match ever begins and seek Him out in His gracious mercy and steadfastness. So let us think upon these things as now we move forward to next time looking at Jacob meeting Esau. When God met Jacob and wrestled with him and wins, just as we in Christ Jesus, when He wrestles with us, we submit to His authority as Lord, and I just call our minds back to this morning. What does that look like in the New Testament? It looks like that jailer who is in there, he realizes that he has no hope, there is no way out, he has no strength of his own, and he just simply cries out, what must I do to be saved? How may I move forward? It's that surrendering to the Lord Jesus Christ for Paul told him, believe. Believe and submit and surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the way to salvation both as Jacob surrendered to God and as we surrender to Christ by faith. Let us close in prayer. Dear Father, God, tonight we do thank you for this imagery. Lord, it is much that is going on, but dear Father, we do ask that you would help us to face our fears of our past. Lord, help us to be quick to forgive those even who have wronged us. Oh God, we ask that you would, Lord, help us in our prayers, Father, that we would be more Christ-honoring, that we would not come to you as peasants always seeking menial things for blessings, but dear God, we would come with hearts of submission acknowledging you and who you are and all that you've done, and Father, being faithful to confess our sins as we bring supplications unto you. And Father, tonight I close in prayer just thanking you. Thanking you that one day when I was alone, spiritually speaking, Lord, that your spirit came and wrestled with me and brought me into submission unto grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you changed me forever. And Lord, my walk and my life has never been the same. And Lord, I thank you for that blessing tonight. We ask that you'd lead us and guide us from this place, for it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.