Fighting With God

Fighting With God

Genesis 32.22-31

DBC 10.22.06

22-23 But during the night he got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok [yab-boke' -a stream that emptied into the Jordan river]. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.

24-25 But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint.

26 The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak." Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me." 27 The man said, "What's your name?" He answered, "Jacob." 28 The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."

29 Jacob asked, "And what's your name?" The man said, "Why do you want to know my name?" And then, right then and there, he blessed him. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel [pen-oo-ale’] (God's Face) because, he said, "I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!"

31-32 The sun came up as he left Peniel [pen-oo-ale’], limping because of his hip. (This is why Israelites to this day don't eat the hip muscle; because Jacob's hip was thrown out of joint.) (Eugene Peterson, The Message, Genesis 32.22-31)

Last week, in the message Laughing With God, we focused in on Sarah whom had a hard time of letting go of things that were out of her ability to control and whom had a propensity of taking things into her own hands instead of having faith in what God had promised he would bring to pass in her life.

Those two bad habits (not being able to let go of things and taking matters beyond one’s control into one’s own hands) keep us from having inner peace and unshakable joy in our daily faith journey.

We noted that too many believers struggle with a Sarah behavioral complex; that is, many believers today want to take our life into our hands and obsess over things that are out of our control and belong in the hands of God alone.

Jacob inherited his grandmother Sarah’s behavioral complex. He too wanted to get what he desired by his own means and out of a need for self- preservation. He lied to get ahead and cheated to have a blessed life.

For most of his life, Jacob worked out of a policy of dishonesty and it worked out for him! He lied to his father and cheated his older brother, but he would live in dread fear of his older brother Esau for a very long time.

Today, I’m talking about how Jacob fought against God and how we too fight against God in our lives and faith journeys. For a long time Jacob avoided his brother Esau and he also avoided facing and fighting with God.

When I was 10 years old, I savored every Saturday morning to watch TV at 10am when I could see the Von Erich boys wrestle the fabulous Freebirds at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft. Worth TX. Ah, the good ole days…when wrestling was “real.”

For those of you who don’t know who the Von Erich boys (David, Kevin, Kerry, Mike and Chris) were, they were the heroes of wrestling and the Freebirds were the villain scoundrels that you loved to hate.

Not only were the Freebirds villain scoundrels, they were also often too chicken to stay in the wrestling ring against any of the Von Erich boys. The Freebirds were cheaters, liars, and chickens much like the early Jacob!

Sometimes we’re more like the Freebirds and Jacob then we want to believe or admit.

Jacob lied to his daddy Isaac to get his father’s blessing and inheritance, which was supposed to go to Esau the firstborn.

When Isaac (Abraham and Sarah’s boy) was on his deathbed he summoned Esau and asked him to bring in one last great game hunt from the wild open land. When Esau was out on his hunt, Jacob slipped in like a snake.

Jacob entered into the tent and approached his old, blind, and dying father. Isaac queried to whom was there and Jacob lied and said that he was Esau. Jacob coached by his mother Rebekah wore a disguise of older brother’s clothes laced with Esau’s heavy scent.

The old man Isaac believed it only after a serious moment of hesitation. Was Isaac that gullible? Or maybe he felt that Jacob would be better off with the blessing than Esau ever would be. Nevertheless, Jacob cheated and lied his way to a blessed life.

I wonder if Jacob believed his own lies? That is, I wonder if Jacob believed that success and happiness in life were justified by the means of lies and any false shortcut.

Jacob believed that a greatly desired profitable life was justified by any means of achieving it.

Jacob never blinked when he lied to his father or cheated his brother.

Jacob had no reservations about a policy of dishonest, as longs as it worked out for him in the end.

And it’s an amazing thing that God let Jacob get by so long that way. And it’s a hopeful thing, to me, that God worked in Jacob’s life despite Jacob’s lies and blind self- preservation. After all, the scripture says that we all have some Jacob and Sarah behavioral complex in us, but that God loves us still yet: “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.8)

For a long time Jacob goes about a blessed life, but soon grows tired and longs to go home, and in order to do that he has to prepare to square things away with Esau, whom he is sure will be ready to kill him.

Squaring things up with Esau, for Jacob, is perhaps his way of finally squaring up (being honest) with his past.

Jacob is no longer staying out of the wrestling ring, he finally steps right into the middle of it and honestly faces his past for the first time in his life.

*Many of us, like Jacob, avoid being honest with God and ourselves, because we believe that such conflict seems needless when life has gone so well for so long; however, if we ever really want to know ourselves and truly know God we have to face ourselves and our past and present and admit that our attempts at self-preservation, while they might succeed in this world, they’re not fit for facing God and being true and genuine to others and ourselves.

Fredrick Buechner describes Jacob’s encounter with God eloquently:

“…Out of the deep of the night a stranger leaps. He hurls himself at Jacob, and they fall to the ground, their bodies lashing through the darkness. It is terrible enough not to see the attacker’s face, and his strength is more terrible still, the strength of more than a man. All the night though they struggle in silence until just before morning when it looks as though a miracle might happen. Jacob is winning. The stranger cries out to be set free before the sun rises. Then, suddenly, all is reversed.

He [the stranger] merely touches the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and in a moment Jacob is lying there crippled and helpless. The sense we have, which Jacob must have had, that the whole battle was from the beginning fated to end this way, that the stranger had simply held back until now, letting Jacob exert all his strength and almost win so that when he was defeated, he would know that he was truly defeated; so that he would know that not all the shrewdness, will, brute force that he could muster were enough to get this. Jacob will not release his grip, only now not of violence but of need, like the grip of a drowning man.

The darkness has faded just enough so that for the first time he can dimly see his opponent’s face. And what he sees is something more terrible than the face of death-the face of love. It is vast and strong, half ruined with suffering and fierce with joy, the face a man flees down all the darkness of his days until at last he cries out, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me!” Not a blessing that he can have now by the strength of his cunning or the force of his will, but a blessing that he can have only as a gift.

Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are his who will fight for them hard enough; but peace, love, joy are only from God. And God is the enemy whom Jacob fought there by the river, of course, and whom in one way or another … all of us fight God, the beloved enemy. Our enemy because, before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives- our selves, our wills, our treasure…” (Frederick Buechnner, The Magnificent Defeat, 17-18)

I heard of a cowboy preacher in Ft. Worth who shares his testimony over a couple of hours as he gently breaks a wild horse. Throughout the struggle, he recounts of how God broke him.

There’s a miracle in being broke by God, in squaring up and exhausting all of our strength and efforts and coming short in life before God. When you’ve been broke like that, defeated like that, you never again choose to rely on your own strength, wits, or ability.

When you’ve faced God and your past and loose yourself to God, that is when you can really begin to live life.

There’s a sense where we can understand fighting with God as fighting against God; however, there’s another way of seeing the phrase of Fighting with God as in to fight alongside God.

*We will never be able to fight alongside God until we have emptied ourselves of our pride, self-preservation, façade, and abilities.

Dr. David King, a retired Baptist missionary and one of my college professors, teared up one day in class and recounted how he looked out into the Mediterranean Sea from the shores of Lebanon and stood there utterly broke and stripped of any self-reliance or self-preservation. He knew that any strength or ability that would succeed in his life and on the mission field from that point on had to come from God alone.

What about you this day?

Have you avoided facing God openly and honestly in life?

Whose strength and wisdom do rely on in life and in your faith journey?

Have you ever been utterly emptied and broken before God?