Genesis chapter 32. We'll begin reading at verse 22. We'll read to the end of the chapter. So Genesis 32, reading from verse 22 to the end of the chapter on page 27. Please give your attention. This is the Word of God. The same night Jacob arose and took his two wives his two female servants and his 11 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. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket. 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. And 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 Penuel, 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. 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. Now, have you ever been anxious about a big event tomorrow, wanting to get your rest, be at your best, strong for the events of tomorrow? Jacob was terrified about the next day. He was anxious about meeting his brother and his brother's 400 men. He didn't know why his brother was bringing 400 men, but he knew his brother and said he wanted to kill him. If you want to talk about somebody who's anxious and wants to be strong and ready for the next day, I would say Jacob wanted to be strong for the next day. We can see he wasn't really able to sleep. He sends everybody across the river. He's there by himself, whether to pray or to pace, toss and turn. And the man wrestles with him. And the man is from God. God deprived him of sleep. God deprived him of strength. Right when he's gonna confront his brother, God deprives him of these things. Why does He do that? He wants to teach you that what is most important is not that you are ready to do your best and your strength. What is most important is that you have God with you. The help that God gives is so much greater and stronger than anything you can do. We have to learn this first of all, the blessing of God is what we need. We do not need to be at our best. We also have to learn that life is a struggle, but in Christ there's victory. Life is a wrestling match. We have to wrestle against temptation. Now this is a dramatic setting because the Jabbok is a short river. It runs 50 miles and it drops 2,000 feet in those 50 miles. It's a pretty steep down. And so what it does is it cuts through and it cuts and makes gorges and canyons and so on. So this is a pretty dramatic and beautiful setting for this. And this is what would become, later in history, the northern boundary of Israel on the east bank of the Jordan. On the east side of the Jordan, not Israel now, but it was then, this was the boundary between them and the other nations to the north of them. So, in effect, he is coming back in to what would be Israel. He's coming into what would be the country. And what is his life going to be like? It'd be easy to think, well, God has promised me the promised land. I am going home in accord with what he told me to do. If I can just get through the Esau moment, then things are going to be easy. be easy to anticipate life. I'm doing what God wants me to do. So for that reason, I know it's going to be easy and go well, but that's not how it was going to be. So God signals this to him. He's about to enter the land. A man comes to wrestle with him to tell us that through many pressures, we enter the kingdom of God. Alvin says, we are warned that this life is a lifelong wrestling match with temptation. Now, do you like the sound of that, a lifelong wrestling match? I don't particularly like the sound of that, but you know, some of you just came back from camp. I've seen a strange thing at camp. I've seen young men wrestling for fun, grabbing each other and seeing who can pin the other one for no reason. just to test their strength against the other one. And we are not to seek out temptations, but when they find us, we are not to roll over and play dead. We're not to easily tap out. We're to expect that we only have to hang on for 90 seconds or two minutes. No, we're warned that life is a lifelong wrestling match with temptation. And Jacob is for us a model of perseverance. He wrestles all night. Go to a wrestling match, it's two minutes, three minutes, rounds, three rounds, and you're done. But he wrestles all night because he has to. It is in the dark and some guy is attacking him. And what's gonna happen if the guy beats him? He doesn't know, he has to keep wrestling. We have to consider ourselves. You also have to keep wrestling. Do not really have the option of giving up because it's just a temptation. The Lord promises to give us a way of escape. You see the way of escape, you run away from the temptation. We're told, flee certain things. But until you manage to get out of there, you need to wrestle with that temptation. Now it got more strange. As Jacob wrestled, he became aware that this was not a mere man he was dealing with, and it was not a demon that he was wrestling with. This was some kind of divine messenger, angel of God, God in human form. So what is the message there? What is the message for us that as he wrestles, it's not a mere man and it's not the devil. He's wrestling with God. What is the point of that? The point is this, say that when you are tempted, your business is with God. Now the devil's often involved in temptation and he wants to be underhanded and cheat you and get you to fail, but your business is with God. God tests our faith. God rebukes our sins. God is our refuge and our strength. To God we must turn. Here's what I mean. You're tempted by anger. Well, your business is with God. Are you gonna usurp his place and take your own vengeance? Are you gonna become the executioner of your own will and your anger? Or are you gonna leave room for the wrath of God as he tells us to do? Are you gonna give a gentle answer? Are you gonna remember the fruit of the spirit is kindness and gentleness and self-control? Your business is with God and your temptation. Are you tempted by lust? Well, then you're being tempted not to be content with what you have. You're being tempted to grab at what is not yours or what is not yours at the moment. And so your business is with God. Are you gonna be content with what he has given you in the moment or not? Are you gonna make an idol snatching at something else? And are you tempted by despair? Well, then your business is very much with God. For is God alive or not? Is God powerful or not? Is He good or not? Does He hear our prayers that we offer in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, or not? If He is alive and hears our prayers and is all-powerful, then how can we despair and say that there is no way when we know that our God can do all things? Jacob wrestled with a man who was in some way God. And so we in all of our wrestling with temptation, it is with God that we must deal. Now Calvin asks, and I'm following Calvin's commentary very closely in the sermon. He asks, but how can a man wrestle with God and not instantly be defeated? He says, well, we must wrestle with the weapons God gives us. Let's wrestle with the strength that God gives us. We ought to remember that God is testing our faith, not coming to destroy us. Calvin uses the image, it is as if God wrestled with us with his left arm, while he held us up with the right. That's why the Psalmist says, your ways and your breakers have all gone over me. picture of troubles from God just overwhelming us. And yet it's a song. He's praying to God for help. Your waves and your breakers have come over me. You wrestle with me with your left hand, but I am praying to you because you are my rock and my refuge. You hold me up with your rights. The wrestling goes on and on and on and on and on and on. The light begins to show up. And the man touches his hip and dislocates it. Now he is disabled. Now he's in pain. Now he really would like to tap out. But the man has revealed that he is no mere man. It's a sense of something supernatural going on. You want to know why? Well, as Jacob limped for the rest of his days, the limp proved to him that was not a really vivid dream. That was not the result of a bad mushroom. No, that really happened. You know it, because you were limping. And he knew that he'd seen God face to face. A good thing to be reminded of And he was taught, and we are taught, not to rely on our own strength. Later on, someone else said, God said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. So he had a constant reminder to rely on God. And he still hung on. He still was hanging on to the guy. He still was not letting him go. Whereas he first fought to survive, now he's fighting to survive and he's fighting for something else that now he knows that he needs very much. The man says, let me go, the day is breaking. And he says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Let me say this for Jacob. He always knew that what was crucial for him was to have God's blessing. He had lied and cheated. lied to his father, cheated his brother to get his father's blessing. Now he's doing it the right way, just as passionately. But now he's dealing with God directly. And he's saying, bless me, I will not let you go unless you bless me. He still wants the right thing. Now he has the right approach. God has come near to him. He says, I don't want this to end until you bless me. The man says, what's your name? He says, Jacob. That's his name. He said it from his birth. From his birth, when he came out second, he came out holding on to his brother's heel. It says that suggestion of trying to throw him out of the way. So Jacob means cheater or supplanter. It has an underhanded sound to the name. He's carried it all his life. He's deserved it a lot. The man says, no longer will that be your name, but Israel, because you've striven with God and with man and have prevailed. Israel would mean either God strides or God rules. He has this new name. He's told you can put away the disgraceful name and you can remember the night that you wrestled with God. The night that God blessed you. The night that God told you things are not going to be easy going forward. It will be a lifelong wrestling, but I will be with you. Jacob wanted the other guy's name. I didn't get it. It was not for him to have a name in the era of shadows, just as it was not for man to see God and live. This man was gonna leave without giving his name, gonna leave before it was daylight, but he blessed him. And Jacob said, let us remember this night. He gave a new name to the place, Peniel, which would be face of God, or God's face. Because he says, I've seen God face to face. And they remembered it reverently. Therefore, the children of Israel don't eat this part of the body as close to where he was touched on his sip. And then it says, the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel. That's an unusually cinematic note for the Bible. Partially because it was such a beautiful location of the river going through the gorges. But also to let us know that the sun has risen upon us. Yes, in the last book of the Old Testament, we are promised that the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And that sun is Jesus Christ. We have a name. We know the name by which to pray. And the name by which we pray is that of the God-man who entered the world, not to rule from a throne, but to suffer in a woodshop. Not the man who came to lead armies, but the man who came to be abused by a cohort. Jesus came the light of the world. And when he baptizes, he baptizes with the Holy Spirit, which as we read this morning, it's a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. And by that spirit, we are to wrestle with temptation. So remember when you are tempted, that it is with God you have to deal. And that with the power of God, you are to wrestle For God wrestles with us, he tests us, he strengthens us for our good so that we may share his holiness. And if you are saying this is entirely too vigorous for a Sunday evening message, I want to encourage you with the ways in which we know that the Lord gives us rest. How does he give us rest? We are promised that when we are tempted, it is not more than we can bear, but he provides a way of escape for us so that we may endure it. We are to find that way of escape from temptation. Rarely do we have to wrestle all out all night. We're to find a way of escape and find the rest from temptation. That gives us a Sabbath day on which we are to rest. You say that's not a rest from temptation. Well, It should be a rest for some different kinds of temptations. A rest from some of the ordinary temptations that you leave aside your ordinary work. You have the day of rest, it's different temptations. Gives us a rest on this day. And he's given us Jesus Christ, God who came into the world as a man to wrestle with temptation as we do. Only he overcame it. As He has merited our salvation, we can rest in Him, content that we are forgiven before God. And finally, remember that Jesus gives an eternal rest. There yet comes a rest from God for the people of God. So when you're wrestling, your lifelong wrestling, don't miss the rest stops. The rest stops to come when you flee temptation, when you rest on the Sabbath, when you rest in Christ, and when you look forward to your eternal rest. We have our eyes on Jesus, and we're to wrestle like Jacob with persistence. We wrestle with temptation. And our temptation, it is with God we must do. We ask him for a blessing in it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for what you did for our Father Jacob. And we pray that as he was persistent, we also would be persistent. And we thank you for our Lord Jesus in whom we stand, in whom we find forgiveness and strength, and in whom we find our rest. We pray this in his name.