Matthew 6:5-15 (NIV)  

⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.  I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, ¹⁰ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  ¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.  ¹² Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  ¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

¹⁴ For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

I think that all Scriptures point to Jesus, and when we read the Old Testament we need to think of the underlying message of Jesus coming to mankind in the future.

The stories in the Old Testament lead us to an understanding that we need a Savior, we need God in a personal way.  God wants to know us and bless us.

Genesis 32:22-32 (NIV)

²² That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  ²³ After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.  ²⁴ So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daylight.  ²⁵ When the man saw 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.  ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷ The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob”, he answered.

²⁸ Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

²⁹ Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?”  Then he blessed him there.

³⁰ So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

³¹ The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.  ³² 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.

How do we find God?  And how do I find what God wants of me?

Today we will answer these questions with the Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau.

Esau was the first born with Jacob holding onto Esau’s foot while he was born.  Esau was Isaac’s favorite and Jacob was Rebekah’s favorite.

Another part of the story is Jacob was able to switch the birthright and the blessing from his brother Esau.

Esau is angry that he has been tricked and vows he will kill Jacob.  Jacob flees to an uncle’s home in a distant land.  Jacob lives there for decades.

After many years Jacob wants to go back home.  He prepares an elaborate scheme of gifts and dividing his family up so that if Esau still wants to kill him only half of his family would be killed.

Jacob has decided he doesn’t want to wrestle with his brother Esau.  But in the middle of the night Jacob wrestles with someone else.

We know Jacob wrestles alone with God.

Let’s think about a real encounter with God.

We have to meet God like Jacob, alone; each person needs to meet God by themselves.

When our support systems are no longer available, business fails, life is going the wrong way, you have to face the circumstances alone.  At the end of our life, we all will face God alone.

A personal encounter alone with God is more like wrestling, not a sit down to have tea.

Wrestling with God is:

1.      Is a focused encounter, you are in the moment with the other person (God).

2.      You will have thought of counter moves.

3.      Wrestling is hard, painful, fighting for your life; an encounter with God is not casual, it is intense.

When you really meet God, you start to understand that he is the most important thing; His will, His love, His plans.  God is the most important aspect of a person’s life, it is to know God, to know what He has said and what He asks of us and to actually do it.

An encounter with God is intense, you are focused, and God becomes a priority.  If you haven’t felt like this, you may not have met God.

The more we have been apart from God, it will take a significant amount of wrestling to get back in God’s good graces.  We need to recognize that He is right and we need to follow Him.

A personal God had to have freedom to contradict us; otherwise, we are worshipping a figment of our own imagination.

The people I know who have encountered and wrestled with God have gone through pain before joy and love.

God sets us up, created us to experience consequences when we stray from the way God wants us to live.  What we go through shapes us into God’s way, if we allow God to be part of our shaping.

What we have learned can be used to minister to others when they are being shaped by wrestling with God.

When troubles will come into our lives, God became the most important thing, and we finally admit “God spoke” and I’m wrestling my way through to my submitting to Him… until we haven’t wrestled with God.

So, who won?  They both won, in different ways.  They won through losing, which the Gospel wants.  That’s how we find and wrestle with God.  We win through losing.

Jacob eventually figured out he was wrestling with God.  He realized that when his hip was injured and realized the power of God.

Jacob also understood he had been wrestling with God all these years and not Esau.  Jacob was trying to run his own life without God.

In summary:

·       Jacob holds on and doesn’t let go, he is wounded and is in pain, the strength now comes from God in the moment.

·       Jacob’s life changes, his life vision changes to only wanting the blessing from God.

The image of Jacob’s thigh is symbolic of one’s descendants.  One of Jacob’s descendants is Jesus.

A personal encounter with God alone: make sure God is the most important thing in your life.

If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.  ~Timothy Keller

Recognize the issues in your life behind all issues you have been fighting hard against God.

Remember Jesus has taken away the penalty of our sins at the Cross.  This is both the love and justice of God, through this process God is blessing you.

The blessing.  I pray for all of you today that no matter how long it takes, I want all listening today to see God’s face.  Continue to wrestle, have patience, wait expectantly.  God bless.