Wrestling with God

[ 000 ] In early 2012 a song was released to pop radio stations that quickly climbed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well as fifteen other charts, including Adult Pop Songs, Adult Contemporary, Hot Dance Club Songs, and Pop Songs charts. Internationally, the song topped the national charts of Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia and attained a top-ten position in over fifteen countries around the world, eventually selling over five million copies worldwide. The song picked up three Grammy Award nominations and a World Music Award nomination.

The main chorus of the song is based on a quote from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Kelly Clarkson took the song and made it a massive hit around the world, and if you know it, you’re probably singing it in your head right now. Now Kelly didn’t care what the song said as people danced to it and bought records. And they did.

But we’re going to see here in Genesis today is the opposite reality to Nietzsche’s quote. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger. Sometimes those painful moments in life leave you quite a bit weaker. A lot more dependent. A lot less self-sufficient. And that can actually be a very, very good thing.

We are in week 9 of a sermon series Promises and Patriarchs, looking at the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph from the book of Genesis. We’ve said goodbye to Abraham, Isaac is crazy old, and Jacob is a bit of a rascal. His name means “deceiver” or “leg-puller”, and he’s done a great job of living up to that name.

Today we’re going to see Jacob have to face the very people he has deceived… his father-in-law Laban, and his brother Esau. And sandwiched right in the middle of those two is an encounter with the living God that leaves Jacob a different person altogether.

But this story is less about Jacob and a lot more about the God who walks with him, sustains him, and goes ahead of him – even if Jacob doesn’t yet submit himself fully to Yahweh. Let’s pray, and then we’ll dive in.

PRAYER

Last week where we ended in chapter 30, we left Jacob with his 2 wives, two 2 servant girls, and the 12 children between them, and Jacob was ready to leave Haran and go back to the Promised Land of Canaan. He had had enough of working for his father-in-law, and in chapter 30 verse 26 basically gave his two week notice.

Laban didn’t want him to leave, and said, well, I’ve learned by divination that you’ve actually made me pretty wealthy since you’ve been here – I’d love for you to stay, just name your wages. Jacob said, pay me in sheep. But give me all the sheep that have weird markings on them. Spotted, speckled, dark-colored – you keep the white ones, and I’ll take anything else. Then, it’s easy to check if I’m being honest or not – If I have any white sheep, you know I’m taking what doesn’t belong to me.

Laban readily agreed to the terms and then immediately tried to sabotage Jacob and guarantee his financial failure by removing every animal that had the markings Jacob wanted for himself. To guarantee that Jacob could not use them, he drove them a three-day journey—forty to fifty miles—away and put his own sons in charge of them (Bergen, 55).

This guy Laban is a piece of work. But Laban is up against a guy whose name means, I’m pulling your leg, right? The deceiver. So Jacob reaches into his bag for what looks like some ancient middle eastern visual voodoo wizardry, where he peeled the bark off of certain trees, puts them in the water troughs when the sheep are in breeding season, and the sheep who bred in front of these tree branches ended up giving birth to speckled and spotted lambs!

And in order to get back at Laban, 41 Whenever the stronger sheep in the flock were breeding, Jacob placed the branches in the troughs. 42 As for the weaklings of the flocks, he did not put out the branches. Scientifically, there is no explanation for any of this. But at the end of 6 more years, it turned out that because of what Jacob was doing, all the weak sheep stayed white and belonged to Laban, and all the strong sheep ended up spotted, speckled, or dark-colored and belonged to Jacob. And he became very wealthy because of it.

But you can only sneak around and con people for so long before it catches up to you and you have to face the music. Jacob initially had to run because he conned his brother and dad, and now his father-in-law and brothers-in-law are on to his actions here in Haran. Jacob knew it was time to go, and the Lord said, get up and return to your hometown.

So he called his family to him, and said, you know that I’ve served your dad as best I could for all of these years, and that, verse 7, he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God has not let him harm me. In fact, verse 9 God has taken away your father’s herds and given them to me. And then Jacob explains in verse 10 and 11 that the whole thing about the branches with peeled bark making the sheep spotted and colored wasn’t all ancient wizardry or voodoo after all – it was God’s intervention, and God’s way of furthering him, providing for him, and growing his flocks.

17 So Jacob got up and put his children and wives on the camels. 18 He took all the livestock and possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, and he drove his herds to go to the land of Canaan, to his father Isaac.

But, before they had left, verse 19 …Rachel stole her father’s household idols. Six years ago, in 30:27, Laban talked about something he learned by divination. Some sort of witchcraft practice. That’s probably what these little idols were for. So Rachel takes them – either so that Laban can’t use them to figure out where Rachel is going? Or because she wants to keep worshiping them herself, thinking they will protect her and Jacob’s family on the long journey. And secondly, 20 …Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, not telling him that he was fleeing. 21 He fled with all his possessions, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for the hill country of Gilead.

Laban found out about this and he was ticked, so he rounded up a posse and took off after Jacob. It took them a week, but they caught up to him. But the night before he caught up to Jacob, verse 24, God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night. “Watch yourself!” God warned him. “Don’t say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.”

Well, the next day, they meet, and in verse 26, Laban expresses his frustration that Jacob just took off without letting him say goodbye to his daughters and grandchildren. He admitted, I came all this way ready to tear you up, but your God warned me last night not to touch you – again, God’s protection over Jacob.

Then in verse 30, Laban says, I understand why you ran off – you’re homesick and you miss your mom and dad. But why did you have to steal my gods? I don’t know anything about that, but verse 32, if you find them here, kill the person that took them. Anything we have that’s yours, take it back. Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.

33 So Laban turns Jacob’s camp upside down looking for these things, and he can’t find them. Rachel was sitting on them, and told her dad, sorry, it’s my time of the month, I can’t stand up right now, and that’s how he never found them.

Now he’s searched the whole camp and comes back empty handed, and now it’s Jacob that is ticked off. He already carried some bitterness toward Laban, and now being wrongfully accused was too much. He unloaded on Laban, why did you chase us down with empty accusations!? I’ve served you for 20 years, taking care of your sheep. If something happened to one of them, I took it out of my own paycheck. From the hottest part of the day to the freezing cold sleepless nights, I served you, and you lowered my paycheck 10 times!

Look at verse 42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, certainly now you would have sent me off empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and my hard work, and his message to you last night proves it.”

So they end up picking out a stone, setting it up as a marker, and it basically served as a no-contact order between the two. I won’t come to you, you don’t come to me, and the next morning Laban said goodbye to his daughters and grandchildren and headed home.

Back when Jacob was a single man on his way to Haran with nothing more than the clothes on his back, he had a dream where he saw angels going up and down a stairway to heaven. And now, in chapter 32, here he is with a large family and massive wealth in terms of possessions, and in verse 1, the angels show up again. God is still with him, like he promised.

It’s funny that we can be reminded 100x that God is with us, and yet the moment something major happens, that knowledge disappears like a mist in the wind.

Because suddenly, in verse 6 of chapter 32, messengers showed up to let Jacob know that Esau has rounded up 400 men and they are headed this way to meet you. Verse 7, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and divided his family and all of his belongings into two groups, thinking, that way if he attacks one group, the others can get away.

All of this points to something we talked about last week. And that is that Yahweh is still not Jacob’s God. He is in line to carry the covenant promises of God, chosen by the Lord to receive the blessing from his father Isaac, even though he was not the firstborn, but he still hasn’t surrendered. He’s still been grasping at this blessing that was his all along, trying to be in control, trying to produce this blessing on his own.

And now he stares down his biggest fear yet – the brother that he manipulated and deceived 20 years ago is now heading his way with an army. And for the first time in the story, Jacob hits his knees and prays.

God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper,’ And here’s Jacob’s first confession of sin. 10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant… 11 Please rescue me from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children. 12 You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to be counted.’ ”

Then, in verse 13, Jacob prepared a generous gift of various livestock for his brother Esau to appease him and hopefully gain his forgiveness. He divided them into separate herds and sent them ahead with his servants, spacing the groups out.

After sending the gift ahead, verse 21, Jacob spent the night in camp with his family, but no doubt he couldn’t sleep, so he got up in the middle of the night, verse 22, and took his two wives, two slave women, eleven sons, and all his possessions, and sent them across the river while he stayed in camp by himself. You can sense the tension, right? The anxiousness of the moment? But do you also realize what he’s doing? This is self-protection at it’s worst. He puts his wives and children between Esau and himself. Again – still trying to be in control. Still manipulating. Still grasping and trying to work things together for the outcome he wants. Still self-sufficient.

And even with everything where he wants it, he still can’t sleep. Somewhere, in the middle of the night, 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. 26 Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Jacob understands that this mysterious man he’s wrestling with has just completely disabled him with one touch, and he is done. But he also realizes, although this man could have killed him, he hasn’t. So he hangs on for dear life with all the strength he has left. He can’t defend himself. He can’t run. He can’t walk. He can’t even stand. He is 100% completely at the mercy of someone much mightier than himself (cf, Murphy, 412).

27 “What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied. The deceiver. The leg puller. In verse 28, the man said, Here’s the blessing you asked for: Your name will no longer be Jacob, your name is now Israel, which means, “struggles with God.” “Jacob would no longer to be known as one who received his blessing by deception. This time he received God’s blessing by struggling with God in faith”(Bloom).

Isn’t it true that generally speaking when we ask for God’s blessing, we’re looking for abundance. Something glorious. We’re looking for bigger, better, richer. STRONGER, right? But in Jacob’s life, the great blessing he came away with was not double his flocks, more land, or more possessions – his blessing was a limp and a deeper sense of his own weakness, a deeper sense of his need for Yahweh, a profound loss of control and self-sufficiency. Think about it – If Esau does decide to attack, Jacob can’t even rely on his own strength to run away. He is now fully at the mercy of Yahweh.

So, 29 Jacob says, tell me your name. Who are you?! The angel is like, really? After what just happened, why are you asking my name? You know who I am. 30 Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.” 31 The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel,—limping because of his hip.

The greatest blessing God gives us sometimes is to strip us of our own strength so that he can put his strength on display. To strip us of control so he can put his sovereignty on display. To strip us of the things we’ve put our identity in, so we can actually be the person he intended us to be.

We are going to sing a song here at the end called “Lord of Hosts” from Psalm 46. And there’s a line in that song if you never knew the story of Jacob, you might be so confused. The song says, “Oh God of Jacob fierce and great, you lift your voice to speak. The earth it bows and all the mountains move into the sea. O Lord you know the hearts of men and still you let them live. O God who makes the mountains melt, come wrestle us and win.”

You might have been singing that here in our gatherings thinking that is the strangest line of a song you’ve ever heard. Well, know you know what it means. It means, Lord, come wrestle us away from the things of earth that have our hearts. Wrestle away our old identities, wrestle away our self-reliance, and give us a new name – DEPENDENT. WEAK. LIMPING but knowing you more than we ever knew you before. Wrestle away all the stuff that gives us a false sense of strength, and but leave us with a deeper sense of your power and your presence.

I had Moriah read from 2 Corinthians 12 this morning, because the apostle Paul found himself in a similar situation as Jacob. He had an incredible experience with the presence of God, and received some amazing revelations from God. But to any fickle human heart, having an experience like that can make you start to think you’re something special. Therefore, Paul writes, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself.

We have no idea what he was talking about, in terms of what he was calling a thorn. But he says, I prayed three times that God would take it away, that it would leave me, but God simply said, “My grace is all you need, because my power is perfected in weakness.”

Author Jon Bloom says it like this: “Anything God gives us to keep us humble and prayerfully dependent on him is a great gift — even when that gift causes us pain. And here we see clearly that God disciplines his children with affliction in order to protect them from having their joy destroyed by the sin of pride, exalting ourselves. Think about that: redemptive pain can protect us from destructive pain” (Bloom–2).

Sometimes what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. And weaker might be exactly where God wants you to be. But weaker isn’t probably what Jacob wants to be as the next morning, when he faces Esau – the brother he tricked out of both his birthright AND his blessing. So Jacob quickly divided up his family in order of importance. Put the slave girls and their children at the front of the line. They can die first if Esau attacks. Then Leah and her kids, and Rachel and Joseph at the very end of the line. Isn’t it funny – new name. New identity. Still tempted to be in control.

But this time, Jacob puts himself at the front of the line, and as he saw Esau coming, he would bow, get up and walk a bit, bow again, walk a bit, bow again – really going above and beyond to have Esau treat him with grace. They get closer and closer, and unexpectedly, verse 4 Esau ran to meet him, hugged him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then they wept. What a moment. All the lost years come rushing to the surface. The bitterness. The anger. The hatred. All of it left in the past. Another blessing for Jacob. Another gift from the presence of God.

5 When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he asked, “Who are these with you?”

Jacob introduced his family, and in verse 8 Esau said what’s with all the goats and camels and sheep and bulls and donkeys that I met on the way here? Jacob said, those are my gift to you. You’ve been so gracious to me, verse 11, please take it, I want to bless you.

Then Esau goes, hey man, we have a lot to catch up on. Why don’t you follow me home, and we can keep talking. But Jacob, who is still a little skittish, makes up a story. I’d love to follow you, but I have young children here, and some lambs and stuff – if we push too hard, I’m afraid we’re going to lose some of them. You go ahead, we’ll take our time, and we’ll get to you when we get to you.

Esau said okay, verse 15, let me leave some of my guys here to help you out. Jacob says, nah, we got it. So Esau started home by going straight south – but Jacob turned West, bought a field, and set up an altar of worship there. And verse 20, look what he named the altar: God, the God of Israel, his new name. Finally, Jacob worships Yahweh not as the God of his dad and grandpa, but as his God. He’s my God now. My savior. My deliverer. My rescuer. My hope. My redeemer. My refuge. My protector. He’s my strength. He’s my shield. He’s my Lord and I am his. Jacob has had his painful encounter with God, he’s been stripped of his self-sufficiency and everything his identity was built on, he’s seen God’s protection and grace in the way Esau has received him, and he has come away a changed man.

One of the main arguments against the existence of God is how do you explain suffering and pain in the world? And scripture tells us, not only does he allow it – sometimes he causes it! But the most fundamental belief in all of Christianity, the very truth that we celebrate every time we eat the Lord’s Supper together, is that God didn’t just watch us suffer or make us suffer or let us suffer – he suffered for us. One day, 1800 years later, from Jacob’s family tree would come a Savior – Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man – and he suffered and died a real death on a real cross. He too had a moment of wrestling with God, as he cried out from the cross, My God, My God – why have you forsaken me!?

But the cross wasn’t where things ended for Jesus – He rose again! He came out of that grave, and what appeared to be a catastrophic ending turned out to be the foundation for a new beginning. You and I might die 1000 smaller deaths during our lifetime, and walk with a limp for our whole life, walking through all kinds of pain and loss and suffering, but we can trust that God is working something deeper in us through these deaths and losses, and that there is resurrection and new life on the other side.

What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger – but sometimes being weaker is where we see the glory of Christ the most, where his strength is at work in us the most, and that’s where we are the strongest. Let me ask you this – how much pain do you think Jacob is in right now? None. He might have limped painfully for 50 more years after this encounter with God, but he limped as a humble, teachable man of God, who had stopped relying on himself, and learned to rely on the only one who could save him. But right now – he’s in the presence of God. He’s not limping anymore. In light of eternity, 50 years of suffering was nothing.

And in the Lord’s Supper, we are once again ushered into the grace of Jesus, through the bread and cup – tangible reminders of his body that was broken for us, and his blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of Jacob’s sins and ours. And every time we do this, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.

He’s coming back one day. And he’ll put an end, once and for all, to pain and suffering and loss. And we’ll walk with him in the greatest abundance and joy and every longing of our hearts will be satisfied in him.

Set the table.

SOURCES

1 Jon Bloom, Will You Wrestle With God, (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/will-you-wrestle-with-God; February 13, 2016) accessed April 24, 2026

2 Jon Bloom, Why You Have That Thorn, (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-you-have-that-thorn; April 13, 2018) accessed April 24, 2026

3 Robert D. Bergen, CSB Study Bible: Notes, 2017

4 James G. Murphy, Notes on the Old Testament: Genesis, (Boston: Estes and Lauriate, 1873)

5. Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021)