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Speaker 1Genesis 32, starting in verse 22. That night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 sons and crossed the ford to the Jabbok. 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 have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. Jacob said, please tell me your name. But he replied, why do you ask 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. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon, but they are attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2Thanks be to God. John Mark Comer, the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church and one of my very best friends, took a perilous pilgrimage between pastoring here and founding Practicing the Way, a beautiful organization born from this community. John Mark, in imitation of Jesus and so many others on the pages of Scripture, willfully walked off alone into a personally chosen wilderness for 20 days. Now, if you know old Jack at all, you are well aware that introvert is too small a word for his personality structure and that minimalist, as a badge of honor he was wearing long before it was cool, all to say he seems like a really great candidate for a 20-day solitary wilderness journey. And to be clear, we're not talking about a Bear Grylls-esque survival mission. He was far removed from civilization and human interaction, but he also was sleeping at night on a cot in a cabin under shelter. It wasn't a journey into the outer wilderness so much as it was a journey into, into his own inner wilderness. As Blaise Pascal famously said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. And John Mark did exactly that for 20 days. 20 days free of podcasts, screens, music, even books. 20 days without human interaction, 20 days with no plans, no schedule, no escape, any kind. 20 days staring right down the stem of all of humanity's problems, our inability to be left alone with nothing but our own thoughts. Would you rather be thrown into a pit of rattlesnakes and have to crawl out, or be entirely alone in a room for 480 hours? Would you rather be let go from your job and have to find a way back into your industry or be entirely alone without distraction other than your own thoughts for 20 days? Would you rather be stabbed in the foot tonight or sit in solitary confinement for roughly three weeks beginning tonight? Right, just the fact that you have to think about your answer to any of those questions tells you something, right? When John Mark returned, we shared an afternoon cup of coffee, him recounting, the defining moment on his pilgrimage. It happened on a Friday night. He was standing on the back porch of his little one-room cabin deep in the Washington wilderness. And the view from that back porch was eerily similar to the wooded backdrop behind his home here in the city of Portland. It was Friday night, the very time when he's used to honoring and celebrating the Sabbath, stopping all of his work for 24 hours to be alone with God, and with the people that he loves. And here he was alone with God, only with no work to stop and no people to love. And so he stood on that porch and he raised an imaginary glass in his hand and pictured his table on that porch. And he went around blessing every member of his family, speaking aloud words over Jude and Moses and Sunday and Tam as tears streamed down his face. Missing them so desperately. And when John Mark recounted that story to me, the memory of that lonely Friday evening, standing over that imaginary table, we were sitting together at an actual table on a Friday afternoon when he anticipated the very Sabbath dinner that he had imagined back then. Now it was just hours away. He was out of the wilderness. Only the wilderness John Mark left physically, he stayed in spiritually. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. And he was in the wilderness for a long time. 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Or you ever find that the quality time you spend with your roommates or your spouse or your kids is almost always inviting them to do your things, to join you in your interests instead of meeting them in their own? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Or that you're working your colleagues rather than listening to them, always thinking about how you might shape them rather than be shaped by them, already planning your rebuttal rather than receiving what they might have to say. Or that you're having far more conversations, winning a whole bunch of arguments with that person in your life with whom you're enduring conflict in your head than you actually are, humbly approaching them, owning what is yours. To own and seeking their forgiveness. Like you probably aren't in danger of a sword fight with your twin brother, but the seed of Jacob is in all of us. And if you don't know where I can guarantee you that it is sprouting, taking root and bearing rotten fruit. At the beginning of this chapter, the setting for Jacob's latest scene, as Nije pointed out to us last Sunday, is named Mahanaim, meaning, two camps. What are the two camps? The camp of Jacob and the camp of God, or said another way, heaven and earth. And our boy Jake, he's been to this spot before. This is the identical place where he laid his head on a rock 20 years ago and had a defining encounter with the God who wants to bless him. He dreamed of a stairway reaching from heaven to earth and heard a divine promise. And in the first verse of the chapter that we are reading from, Jacob recognizes the place where he's now scheming. He says something like, wait a minute, this is it. I've been here before. I met God here before. He committed himself to me. He promised to bless me, to go with me wherever I wander, even to bring me all the way back home. And here I am, living in God's faithfulness to that very promise. And when he realized that, he realizes that God is re-upping on the same promise, blessing and favor towards you however far you wander. What a breathtaking moment. And Jacob responds, verse 21, the final verse before we picked up the story. So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp. Do you realize what's happening here? Jacob is receiving from God, in one hand, while white-knuckling his own control in the other. He's hearing God's promise for provision and protection, while keeping a scheme going to protect himself, just in case. I want your protection, Lord, but I'm also going to protect myself. I want your provision, Lord, while I keep providing for myself. I want your blessing, Lord, but I'm also doing my very, very best in every way. I'm also doing my very, very best in every way. I'm also doing my very, very best in every way. I'm also doing my very, very best in every way. I can come up with to bless myself. Can you relate? I sure can. Jacob had his own reconciliation plan, one that included a bunch of gifts, a human shield, and about eight hours of Shaddai, all so that he could reconcile with his brother, bury the hatchet, make things right, and live at peace by his strength, and God won't have it. He wakes Jacob up in the middle of the night for a fight, literally, wrestling him in injuring him, so that Jacob faces his greatest fear, revisits his life's defining wound, and repents of his great sin pattern to the one he wronged in his weakness, rather than in his strength. That's the preview. It's the movie trailer version of the standout Genesis moment, Jacob's wrestle with God. And now that you've seen the trailer, let's watch the film, shall we? You ready? All right. Look back at your Bibles with me. Genesis chapter 32, verse 24. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. So Jacob gets ambushed in this heaven on earth spot. God, in the form of a man, begins wrestling with Jacob. And wrestling isn't boxing, right? It isn't fighting. Wrestling is about a whole lot more than just rage or brute strength alone. It's strategic. It's calculated. All about leverage. That's why wrestling is done competitively in weight classes, because it's not a fair fight if one wrestler significantly outweighs the other. They've got a decided advantage when it comes to leverage, and leverage is power in wrestling. It's the name of the game. Leverage determines the winner, and leverage is power the serpent's way, Jacob's way. Jacob leveraged his brother's exhaustion and hunger against him to steal the birthright. He leveraged his dad's appetite against him to steal the blessing. He wrestled his uncle for years before he got so much leverage that Laban eventually tapped out. And here he is, undefeated champ, master of leverage, wrestling God himself. Verse 25. When the man saw that he could not overpower him. Now read in the original Hebrews, the language is actually even more ambiguous than it reads in modern English. Both wrestlers are named using only pronouns, making it very unclear whether it's Jacob who couldn't overpower God, or God who couldn't overpower Jacob. And that ambiguity is really important, because while logically you would think, well, no human can overpower God within the story that we're reading, God's been committed to this guy. From before he lived a single day, and Jacob just won't stop playing the snake. So in some very real sense, God can't seem to overpower Jacob. No matter what God does, Jacob just won't surrender his will. He insists on his control, his strength, taking God's promised blessing that cannot be grasped, but only received with open hands. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he said, I will not overpower you. I will not overpower you. I will not overpower you. He touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. All right. So there are certain times when the biblical translators seem to make the Bible a whole lot more polite in modern English than it was actually written in ancient Hebrew. They sanitized the story a little bit. Case in point, God touched Jacob's hip. Touched is actually the Hebrew term nagah, and it can be translated touched, touched violently, struck, driven back, or plagued. It's a word that shows up about 150 times in the Old Testament. It's most frequently brought into English as struck. What is certain here is that we're not meaning touched in the way that you and I often use the word. We're talking about some kind of violent, ouch, keep your hands to yourself. Form of touch. Hip, though, is even better. Hip is the Hebrew term yarek, and it typically means thigh or loin. According to the dictionary of biblical language, yarek means loins, area of the genitals, area of procreative power. What exactly are you getting at, Tyler? What are you trying to say? I'm trying to make very clear to you in an academic way that God didn't touch Jacob's hip. God punched Jacob in the nuts. And he punched him hard enough below the belt to knock his entire hip out of socket. I don't want to mess with your view of the divine or anything. I'm just telling you that we're reading the Bible here, and the story certainly seems to end indicate that God realized he couldn't out-leverage this particular guy, and so he broke the rules, delivered a low blow, and then Jake kept wrestling. Verse 26. Then the man said, let me go, for it is daybreak. So Jacob still got God in a chokehold, even with the compromised nether region and a dislocated hip. Stubborn, strong-willed. These terms are way too polite for whatever's wrong with this dude. But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me. Always the same story with this guy, isn't it? He left home as a thief of blessing, and that's how he's coming back. Blessing on my terms, by my power, my control, my timing, my strength. I want all that God has for me, but I want it in a way that costs me nothing, most especially my vulnerability. That is the primary theme of Jacob's life. It's how the serpent's lie was buried deepest in him. How about you? What are you wrestling God over? Demanding on your terms. What concentrated down to just ten words, like it is right here for Jacob, is the core lie you believe? I won't let you go unless you love me. I won't let you go unless you see me. I won't let you go unless you admire me. I won't let you go unless you celebrate me. Unless you protect me. Unless you provide for me. Unless you justify me. Unless you forgive me. I won't let you go unless you stay with me. Will you really stay with me? If I release my grip? The sun eventually rises, and Jacob begins his journey to face, his great fear to go reconcile with his brother Esau, safely tucked behind, of course. A parade of manipulative gifts and a human shield that he sent out before dozing off. Verse 31. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Right, his hip. Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. So to summarize the story for you, God is so determined to keep his promise to bless this guy that God has gone on a winding 20-year journey with Jacob while he just runs and manipulates, runs and manipulates. And here he is on the border of the family land returning to his childhood home to manipulate his brother again just like he did at first. And God's like, all right, I need to act and act decisively. Wrestles him all through the night, still can't get him to submit. So God eventually goes through this divine internal monologue that's something like, forget it, I'm punching him in the junk. And so, concludes the author of Genesis, that's why the Israelites don't eat the hip meat at their barbecues. What? What? What? What could this story possibly be about? If you're new around here, welcome to Bridgetown Church. You've caught us right in the thick of a teaching series on the Bible's first book, Genesis. And this particular Genesis moment functions parabolically within the larger biblical story. And I don't mean that in the sense that it's fiction. Don't panic. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that like John Mark's lonely Sabbath on the back porch in the Washington wilderness, Jacob's wrestle with God in the Israeli wilderness is a real event that depicts an ongoing theme in Jacob's spiritual life. This story is among the most profound and mysterious moments in all of the Bible. And like so many of the parables Jesus will later tell to reveal his coming kingdom, it is best understood paradoxically. And so that's how we're going to untangle the story by addressing the three paradoxical questions the story raises. Is salvation a moment or a life? Is the blessing God's favor or God's fist? And is Jacob wrestling God or Esau? First question. Is God wrestling God or Esau? Is salvation a moment or a life? Back to the story, verse 27. The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob, he answered. Now hang on a second. What does Jacob mean? Does anyone remember? Deceiver, manipulator, trickster, right? He's named by the lie. He bears the name of the core sin that he carries. Only God renames him. He renames him here. Israel. Well, what does Israel mean? Verse 28. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. So is God saying that Jacob wrestled with God in one just like Jacob wrestled with people in one? No, it's not that. God is saying that Jacob's victory is in the simple fact that he is finally bringing the fight to God. All of us, we try to deal with the core lie that we believe first by going to other people rather than to God. I feel undesirable or unwanted and so I seek it in a companion. I feel unseen and so I climb to the top of my chosen podium. I feel unworthy and so I try a thousand ways to get you to tell me that I'm worthy. I can't seem to forgive myself and so I go on an endless, endless search for someone in the world who can make me feel forgiven. There's this moment in Will Smith's memoir that he describes at the very beginning of his life, a moment I've referenced before, but it is the best depiction I know of what Genesis is getting at here. Will's just a kid and he witnesses his father abusing his mother right there in front of the kids in their family living room. And he froze. Now, Will's the oldest son. He knows this is a moment for him to step up and step in, to say something, to call out for justice, to defend his mom in some way, but he froze. And then his little brother who was standing behind him steps around him, steps between the two of them and begins to defend their mother and that's when he realizes that, says Will, is the defining moment of my life. It is the moment I've never stopped living in response to, never stopped trying to make up for every accomplishment I've ever gotten, every album I've ever released, every role I've ever been cast in. It's all just me trying to become publicly who I failed to be privately. You know, you can make it a number of miles along the narrow way behind Jesus without ever dealing with that core lie that you believe. Whatever your version of it may be, I can meet and follow Jesus. I can read my Bible every morning and pray every evening. I can become a leader in the church without ever once dealing with the core lie that I believe. The deeper journey of the spiritual life begins though on the day I finally bring the fight to God. I feel undesirable or unwanted. Can you, God, choose me in a way that satisfies my need to be chosen? By everyone else. I feel unseen. Will you see me, God, in a way that causes me to stop seeking it everywhere else? I feel unworthy. Can you dignify me in a way that finally quiets my need to prove myself? I can't seem to forgive myself. Can you wash me? Can you purify me in a way that makes me know, not in my head, but all the way down in my gut to feel like I'm actually whiter than snow? That deeper journey, that's when the narrow way suddenly starts to feel less like a path that I'm following and more like a wilderness that I've wandered into. An inner wilderness, not an outer one. Verse 30. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared. When God blesses Jacob, he realizes who he's been wrestling with all night and he is blessed not by his own, his victory, but by the willing act of wrestling with God. He is injured and made more by finally bringing the fight to God. How exactly do I know he's made more? Is it because God gives him a new name? No, it's because when he stands back up, he lives a life worthy of that new name he's been given. He lives like he actually is who God calls him. He lives the truth, not a lie, not a lie for the first day in his life. The next chapter of Genesis begins, Jacob looked up and there was Esau coming with his 400 men. It's just the scene that Jacob feared walking into, right? Here comes his brother with an army. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants. He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children, children next. And Rachel and Joseph in the rear, he himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. Jacob had a plan, remember? We were told just a few verses ago. Butter him up with gifts, a refund on some of the financial blessing that I took, human shield coming after that just in case, and here's twin bro with an army of 400. And what does Jacob do? He throws out his plan. He walks to the front, limps his way ahead of all the women and children, ahead of the livestock and the gifts, bows down to the ground in humble apology, entirely vulnerable before his brother with his body. Jacob is saying, if you're here to take anyone's life, take mine. He is embodying the suffering servant. He is previewing Jesus' victory. Jacob is. He is taking up his own cross. He is finally, for the first time in his life, acting like God will bless him, freeing him of the need to bless himself. This is the high point in Jacob's character. It is his most virtuous moment. Jacob died last night in that wrestle with God, and Israel rose this morning to reconcile what's been torn apart in the world. Jesus rose with scars on his hands and feet on Easter morning to reconcile all things. And Jacob rose with a limp on this ordinary morning to reconcile his share in the corruption of God's creation. And here is one of the great paradoxes of apprenticeship to Jesus. Salvation is both a single moment and an entire lifetime. Jacob arose new and renamed after wrestling with God. Salvation is both a single moment and an entire lifetime. God dying to himself and rising to life. And the fight of his life from this day forth is to die again each day that he might rise again each day to live in concert with that resurrection life. In fact, the very reconciliation he can stomach today is only halfway home. Because later in chapter 33, Esau so entirely forgives his brother that he invites Jacob to move back home, to settle on the land, to share the fruit, to share the family property. What a storybook ending. Only Jacob responds, ah, no thanks. Let's just settle accounts and be distant neighbors who don't really have to see each other anymore. Full reconciliation is too much for Jacob. It's a step too far. It's more than he can handle today, meaning there's a whole lot more dying and rising that he'll have to do again tonight. But, and I think this is equally important for us to realize, God doesn't wrestle Jacob again the next night. So God is aware that Jacob's still got a lot of becoming, a lot of growing up, a lot of maturing to do, plenty left to redeem in him. But it's as if God says at a certain point the night before, that's enough for right now. That is all you can take for this leg of the journey. I'll work with this much. Do you see how patient, how persistent, how personal God is in redeeming every last one of us? Do you see how he comes to us in the conditions of our actual lives, how he leads us all the way back home to our true selves, and how he gently doesn't load us up with any more than we are able to bear at any given leg of the journey? Do you see? Did Jacob really surrender in a full and final, untakeable and entirely redeemed way that night wrestling with God? Yes, he absolutely did. Does Jacob still have more salvation to work out in the days and years of his life that remain ahead of him? Yes, he absolutely does. The Benedictine monks of the Christian church, dating all the way back to their founding in the 5th century, have included among their vows, conversatio morum, which is Latin for conversion of life. It's a way of acknowledging that all of us at some point must have a decisive moment when we drop our nets and follow Jesus. All of us must actually choose to forsake the life we had to take hold of the life that Jesus is offering us, while equally acknowledging that I once was lost, but now I am found, is both theologically true and experientially misleading. Because, of course, there is a profound fundamental shift upon the moment of my salvation, but letting go of my old life and taking hold of my new life, putting off my old self and taking on the new self is a two steps forward, one step back kind of dance that lasts a lifetime and isn't even complete when I die, but only when Jesus returns to make all things new so that I might rise to live with him eternally. The common biblical word for all of that, for the life that Jesus gave me in his life, death, and resurrection, is salvation. And salvation is about our past, present, and future. Salvation is about what Jesus has done for us, and it's about what Jesus is doing and will do for us, which is why the apostle Paul writes both, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation, has come, the old has gone, and the new is here, and continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Continue to work out what is already here, what is already true, because the story of your life after resurrection is not a seamless ascension heavenward. It is the unshakable tendency to walk back into the tomb that you just left empty behind you. The Christian life is not a, one-time act followed by endless perfection. It is the stubborn willingness to meet the God of resurrection again and again and again so that my legacy increasingly becomes a string of empty tombs I'm leaving behind me. So is salvation a moment or is it a life? Yes. Next question. Is the blessing God's favor or God's favor? Fist. We got to remember when God renames Jacob to Israel, the sentiment is something like, you've wrestled with people in the world and that's gone relatively well for you. You've accumulated wealth, power, prestige, and reputation. People know your name. You've grown a family. You are important and established in all the ways you can't keep. And until this night of wrestling, that's what Jacob thought blessing was. He thought it was economic prosperity, success, achievement, public image, personal security, and relational fulfillment. He thinks blessing is all the ways that we feel whole. All those means of safety and significance we are ever grasping for but are slipping through our fingers the very moment we get our hands on them. And so even though for every day of his life, Jacob was blessed, Jacob never felt blessed. Because he was forfeiting the only blessing he can keep for all the ones he can't. And God is saying something like, you've tried and tried to get what I promised to give you from some giver in the world, some giver in your world, some giver you can manipulate your way, but now, alone in this heaven on earth spot, on the eve of your life's defining day, God says, finally you're struggling with me and this is gonna hurt, but it's gonna hurt in a way that heals. You're gonna limp, for the rest of your life after this, but that limp in your gait will be your victory trot. The pain of wrestling with God is the blessing of God. His fist is his favor. Jacob wanted the blessing of God and that is a good desire. But Jacob paired a good desire with a faulty means. Jacob assumed the blessing of God would come on his terms and may be, and we do too. We assume the favor of God will feel a whole lot like the fulfillment of my desire, my way. The blessing of God is economic prosperity, success, achievement, popular public image, personal security, and relational fulfillment, right? We think God's blessing is the accumulation of all we want but can't keep. And so this, this story includes the mystery of suffering as a means for character formation. It includes suffering repurposed as blessing. In the words of the psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of their depths. These persons have an appreciation and a sensitivity and an understanding life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep love and concern. Beautiful people don't just happen. Suffering comes from the serpent, not from the creator. It is the product of sin that God will redeem and eradicate for good. But in the meantime, God redeems every ounce of suffering we endure. Given to God, my suffering can become the furnace of my formation. And that goes for the suffering of a diagnosis, loss, or betrayal, but it also includes suffering in its more subtle but every bit as real forms, like the deep internal suffering of feeling like I lost the God I thought I knew somewhere back there on the path. Or somehow, I lost the God I thought I knew somewhere back there on the path. Or somehow, I lost the God I thought I knew somewhere back there on the path. Or somehow, I lost the God I thought I knew somewhere back there on the path. Or somehow, I lost the God I thought I knew somewhere back there on the path. Or somehow, I lost track of the plot of the story I thought God was writing in my life, and I don't know what character I'm playing or what story I'm living in anymore. Suffering is something that God will do away with in the future, but it's also something that God redeems in the present, provided, of course, that I wrestle with God through my suffering. We think becoming more like God means becoming more powerful and protected from pain writes psychiatrist Kurt Thompson, when in fact, it is in our suffering and in persevering in the face of it in vulnerable community that we actually become more like God. So then, is blessing God's favor or his fist? When Jacob was dead set on returning to the land of his core lie, the relationship most fractured by his pattern of manipulation, and he's going his way in the strength of all those blessings he's gathered up that he can't keep, and through pain, God redeems him in a way that his comfort cannot touch. Jacob will limp for the rest of his life, and I can't imagine he would ever trade the injury to his hip for the healing of his soul through the injury of his hip. The surprise for Jacob is that the very thing he feared the most, meeting Esau in vulnerable weakness, turned out to be the greatest blessing of his life. How are you suffering? How are you suffering, my brothers and sisters, my family? How are you suffering? What injustice, diagnosis, betrayal, or subtle, deeper, inner sense of lost do you find yourself pinned to the ground by tonight? Pray God will remove it, sure, but even if he doesn't, God redeems every ounce of suffering that you endure, provided, of course, you bring the fight to him. How are you suffering? And if God's not immediately removing it, how might he redeem it? Use it as the fire that refines your eternal soul. Is blessing God's favor or God's fist? Yes. And finally, did Jacob wrestle God or Esau? Chapter 33, verse 4, but Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. He threw his arms around his neck and kissed him, and they wept. Surely, this real-life parable was in the imagination of Jesus when he told the fictional parable we call the prodigal son, right? I mean, the wayward son's meeting with his forgiving, generous father echoes Jacob's meeting with Esau in so many ways. And I think that's what's so important to us. I think that's what's so important to us. I think that's what's so important to us. Both stories ending with the one who left weeping in the arms of the one they robbed in order to leave. Author Mike Mason says, wrestling with God, Jacob was wounded, but in meeting Esau, he was healed. Verse 10, Jacob, at this point being forgiven by his brother, responds to him, for to see your face is like seeing the face of God now that you've received me favorably. And Jacob saw the face of God, remember? He said that just a few verses ago in the previous chapter. And now, this morning, he's saying to his brother something like, when I look at you, Esau, I recognize the man I was wrestling with in my dream last night. Jacob continues, back to verse 10, please accept the present. Now, this English word present, you'll never believe it. It's the Hebrew word. Blessing. This is a full confession and repentance. Jacob's saying to his brother, I took your blessing. Here, I want you to have it back. I need to return it to you. Why the sudden change of heart? Please accept the blessing that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me, and I have all that I need. For the first time in his life, Jacob's not wanting, not grasping, not taking. When Jacob looks at his brother's face and recognizes the redeeming work of God in his ordinary life and relationships, when Jacob recognizes that God is conspiring to keep his promises in spite of Jacob's many wrongs and the absolute mess he's made of the present moment, suddenly he doesn't need to hold so tightly to what he's been gripping for security. And that, the trust that God will keep his promises to bless me, frees my grasping hands to receive and even to give. Did Jacob wrestle God or Esau? Yes. In his autobiography, the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis shares that as a young man, he used to visit the monasteries on Mount Athos and interview the wise old monks who lived there on that remote island. And he wrote, he recalls this one really memorable conversation he had with an old monk with a great reputation for holiness. And he asked this monk, do you still struggle with the devil? Oh no, the old man replied. I used to struggle with him when I was young, but now I've grown old and tired and the devil's grown old and tired with me. We leave each other alone now. Now I wrestle with God. You wrestle with God, Nikos said. You hope to win? No, no, no. I wrestle with God, hoping to lose. It's been five years now since I sat across that table from John Mark, as he recounted that lonely Sabbath in the wilderness he chose, a parable for the wilderness he didn't choose but was thrust into. And in the five years since, I also watched my friend John Mark, and I said, I'm going to go to the wilderness. And he said, I'm going to go to the stand up. I saw the sun break his long dark night. He is no longer on a 20-day silent retreat in the Washington wilderness, nor is he on the longer, much more painful, much more formative spiritual wilderness he didn't choose. He stood up and kept going, but I can tell you he's limping these days. I see it in his gait when he walks. There's something about his stride now. He's more healed, more whole than he was before. John Mark didn't just go on a 20-day wilderness retreat. John Mark wrestled with God night after night after night, struggling for leverage on so many long dark nights, and then he finally stood up with a victorious limp. He is one of the few holy souls that I have been privileged to know who wrestles with God, hoping to lose.
Speaker 1Thanks for joining the Bridgetown family as we engage in this teaching series. To learn more about the life of our church and how you can get involved, visit bridgetown.church.com. If you're interested in contributing financially to Bridgetown Church and to our ministry, you can do that at bridgetown.church.com. Wherever you're joining us from, we hope this resource blesses you and encourages you. To be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.
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