Jacob encountering God

This series explores the highs and lows of Jacob in Genesis. Through Jacob’s birth, family conflict, and relationship with God, we see God’s redemptive plan on the move. God transforms Jacob from a deceptive young man into Israel: the one who wrestles with God.

Last week we look at a time when Jacob had to run because of the sin in his life. You see Jacob had decieved his father and stolen the blessing of his bother Esau. When this happened Esau wanted to kill Jacob for going this to him. So Jacob run. He went t is Uncles house to leave for a little bit. While it end up being 20 years. Has he was leave he stop to sleep on a mount at this point he had a dream in which he saw God standing beside a stairway. God told Jacob that he would still use him and that he would never leave him. So Jacob turns back to God and this time. We can too. N matter what you have done God can and still will use you. God still love you. Jacob’s encounter with God reminds us that God’s love is not based on our morality but on his faithfulness.

This week we will be fast forwarding a little in the life of Jacob. We will be jumping to Genesis 32. If you have your bible go head and turn to Genesis 32:22-32. If you do not have your bible you can follow along on the screen in a few moments.

Before we look the passage this morning I would like to take a moment to fill you in on what happened in Jacobs life between Chapters 28 and chapter 32.

Jacob meets Rachel

Starting off Jacob meets Rachel and loves her. He was willing to work for 7 year for her Father Laban to be able to marry her. After the seven year was up Laban deceived Jacob and brought in Leah Rachel sister. Leah was the first born and it was not customary for the younger daughter to marriage before the firstborn.

So Jacob work another 7 years for the right to marry Rachel which he loved more than Leah. Leah was able to have children but Rachel was not. This is important here. You see all the son of Jacob will in the future become the 13 tribe of Israels. Out of these Leah had 7 of them. While Rachel only had 2. Of these two Joseph was one of them and Joseph was Jacob favorite. The other son were born of the two different concubines.

there is a lot more that happened but for time we have to move into today part of the story

Lets pick up on the story in

Genesis 32:22–32 CSB

22 During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two slave women, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions. 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.” 27 “What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied. 28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. 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. 32 That is why, still today, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because he struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Jacob wrestled with a man

this fight if you could call it that happened late one night. This moment is a key moment in the life of Jacob. When the fight started Jacob had no clue how he was wrestling with. They wrestle until daybreak. At the moment the other person dislocates Jacob hip. If you have very dislocated a joint you know how painful that can be. This stops the fight. Jacob asked for a blessing. You see Jacob was about to find out who is was wrestling with all night. It was God and he gave him a blessing.

Jacob’s name is changed

Changing someone’s name was a way to exert authority over a person. Jacob accepts the name change, which in this case is equivalent to accepting a change in character.

The new name is designed to indicate the conversion of what has been one of Jacob’s traditional strengths.

Jacob become Israel. You see the name Jacob was defined as a deceiver. The name Jacob could not be used anymore because God had changed him. In the moment the God of Jacob father has finally become his God.

This name change seals in the name for the rest of time for the descendants of Jacob. Israel become the nation that God intend them to be many many years later.

The Name Israel most like means and understood “he strives with God.”

What is the purpose for the this account?

The significance of the passage lies primarily in Jacob’s discovering the freedom and enduring grace of God. The passage shows that God is free to bless whom he pleases. The blessing Jacob so desires is not an automatic bestowal based on God’s promises to his fathers, Abraham and Isaac. Nor is it a promise Jacob can achieve through his own strength or wit. Through the transforming grace of the Lord, this man undergoes a moral conversion that will render him an appropriate vessel of divine blessing.

“We have short memories of poor, wretched Ebenezer Scrooge. Here was a fallen man in desperate need of redemption, with absolutely no desire to turn from his egregious ways. Then three spirits visited him, and all changed overnight. But the Scrooge we remember is not the forgiven one. It is not the redeemed curmudgeon whose joy on Christmas morning led him to leap through the air like a drunken man, exclaiming ‘Glorious, glorious!’ We like to keep Scrooge locked in our hearts as the greedy, depraved, unregenerate sinner of his pre-visitation, using him as a cautionary tale about the damning effects of pursuing money and gain. Ebenezer found joy, but we rarely let him have it. Yet when this joy was finally loosed in him, it knew no bounds” (Ronnie Martin, “Scrooge, Overjoyed,” The Gospel Coalition, December 11, 2011,

When people are transformed by God, we need to celebrate their new life.

In order to encounter God we must go through a massive transformation in our lives

Do you want to encounter God?

Are you willing to allow God to massive transform you this morning?

Are you willing to give it all up for God?

If you answered yes to the question and you are ready to encounter God. God is waiting for you to turn to him. God is waiting for you ask him into your life. Its your choice.

Just like Jacob. We all must go through a transformation to see God. God can not look upon sin in our live. IT take the blood of Christ to wash over us so that we can have a transformational life with God.