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Genesis 32: 22-31 and he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants, And he said, let me go, for the day breaketh.  And he said I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said unto him, what is thy name?  And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And he said, let me go, for the day breaketh. 

And he said I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, what is thy name?  And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said; tell me, I pray thee, thy name.  And he said, wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?  And he blessed him there.  And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:  for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.  And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

Have you ever had an experience where you know that you know God is dealing with you over some specific area in your life?  I think we all have wrestled with God at some point in time.  Right now in this room, there may be some of you who God is contending with, over a situation that you just can’t seem to get the victory over. But I want you to know that right in the midst of your struggle, God is there.  Just as with Jacob, God often contends with us through the darkest hours, wrestling against our will and our strength, pressing and forcing out the old nature in us.  For some of us, God has wrestled with us over certain things in our life for quite some time now.

This past week, Jody and I were working out in our backyard planting some plants, and every time we go outside, our dog, Chloe has to go out.  She loves going outside.  I think it’s all that pent up energy.  She’ll take off running all the way to the back and around the side just as fast as she can.  I think she loves the freedom of being outdoors.  So I turned to check on her, and I noticed she had a big, black mark on the side of her face.  Don’t ask me why but dogs love to roll in something that’s not very nice. 

Jody said this is the perfect time to give her a bath.  So while she went to get the water ready, I kept her amused, and when the time came, I grabbed hold of her by the collar and walked her up toward the house.  But just as soon as she began to realize what was about to happen, she dug her heels in and started resisting me, started fighting against me, and struggling.

I told her she needed to have a bath, and by her reaction she was saying, no I don’t, I’m fine the way I am, leave me alone.  I tried pulling her and she tried escaping out of her collar, and she kept resisting and fighting and pulling away, I told her again you are going to get a bath whether you like it or not, and she was saying, No I am not, you can’t make me, go away!  So I had to actually pick her up and pin her against my body, holding her against her strength and her unwillingness to get a bath, until I was able to put her in the water.  I think that we are a lot like that.  When God looks at us, He sees areas in our life that need to be cleaned up.  But we all have that tendency to wrestle with life, to take things in our own hands, to set our own agenda, and work things out in our own strength.

This passage of scripture tells of an encounter Jacob had with God one night when he was all alone.  God loved Jacob, but he saw the inward struggles that were going on in his life, and He wanted to do something about it. He wanted to bless him!  Notice that the scripture doesn’t say that Jacob wrestled with a man, but there wrestled a man with him.  And I think this is important.  It shows that God is the one who initiated this wrestling match.  And on this one particular night when Jacob was all alone, God confronted him face to face over the condition of his heart.

So this begins the story of the struggles in Jacobs’s life.  Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, and one day he pleaded with God to give Rebekah a child, even after many years of marriage, she had no children.  So God answered his prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant.  You may be here today as a result of someone’s prayer.  God works through the generations of His people, and your life is probably the fulfillment of some part of Gods master plan working in you, just as He was doing through Jacobs’s life. 

So during Rebekah’s pregnancy it was as if the babies inside her were fighting with each other, so she asked the Lord what was going on.  And the Lord said the sons in your womb shall become two rival nations.  One will be stronger than the other; and the older shall be a servant to the younger.  Now when the day came for her to deliver, the first came out red all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau, and after that his brother came out and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob.

Jacob grabbed Esau's heel as if to pull him back in an effort to be the first born, a position of prominence in the Hebrew family. You see in Bible days, a person's name carried with it the very identity of the person.  No Hebrew parent chose a name for their baby just because it sounded nice, or was popular, but only because the name fit the child! The name Jacob means “one who takes by the heel, or supplants.” Jacob’s name prophetically described his character, which was a deceiver, one who took advantage of others, a manipulator, and deep in his heart Jacob knew it was true.  How would you like to live with a name like that? 

I think there are a lot of people today living with the guilt and the shame of their past, and the condemnation that goes along with it.  I believe that there are areas in our lives; where there are some major inner struggles going on, and so our strong will hangs on trying to make it on our own.  So it is God who often meets us in the night time, when we are feeling all alone.  He brings us face to face in a confrontation with Himself and reveals to our heart the real cause for our struggles, and that’s exactly what God did that night when he wrestled with Jacob.

On one particular day Jacob was preparing bread and a pot of lentils stew, and Esau came in from hunting in the field and was hungry.  And he asked Jacob to feed him for he was faint, but Jacob answered him and said, “Sell me this day thy birth right”.  So now begins the manipulating life that Jacob would live.  Esau answered him and said, I am about to die from hunger, what good will this birthright do to me, and the Bible says he despised his birthright and sold his birthright to Jacob.

I wonder how many blessings that God has desired to bestow upon us, have we sold and forfeited, for the price of satisfying the desires of our flesh.  And it came to pass when Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son to come into him so that he could bless him before his death.  But Rebekah spoke to Jacob to go to his father and deceive him by pretending to be Esau, by dressing in goats skins and putting on his brothers clothes so that He might receive his fathers blessings.

Now when Esau heard the words of his father over Jacob, he cried with a great bitter cry and said unto his father, bless me, even me also my father!  But Isaac said thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away your blessing.  Is he not rightly named Jacob?  For he hath supplanted me these two times; he took away your birthright; and now he has taken away your inheritance.  And because of this Esau hated his brother Jacob, and planned in his heart to kill him, and when Rebekah heard of these plans, she sent her son Jacob to flee away for safety.

Jacob received the blessing by trickery and deceit. From his mother's womb, he took hold of his twin brothers heel at birth, and according to scriptures he continued taking hold of others blessings. He stole his brother's birthright, his father's blessings, and later on his father-in-laws flocks and herds.  And the man touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and dislocated it out of its joint, and said unto Jacob, What is thy name? 

This is the whole reasoning behind Gods encounter with Jacob that night. He had lied, cheated, and deceived his way through life. He obtained his blessings by stealing them from others. The last time Jacob was asked what his name was, had come from his earthly father. Jacob had lied on that occasion and said, "I am Esau," and stole his brother’s rightful inheritance.  Jacob understood the reasoning behind God’s question and answered, “My name is Jacob”.  He knew who he was, and what his name signified. All of his life he struggled with his destiny, and his purpose.  He was supposed to be heir to the promises of God given to Abraham, and then passed down to his Father Isaac. 

I think he struggled with the timing of God’s plan for his life.  Jacob and his mother were convinced that the blessings of God’s promises were some how connected to the blessings of an earthly father and a share in his wealth.  And since they hadn’t seen any sign of Gods promises coming to pass, they decided to take matters into their own hands.  How many of you have ever struggled with your destiny and purpose in life? How many of you have ever questioned God’s timing and plan for your life?

Some serve God for recognition, some serve God for advantage.  But God desires our heart, and a relationship.  Jacob wanted God's blessing but he didn’t want God's ownership of his life. He wanted God to "bail him out" in the hard times but he didn’t want to submit to God in his living. Jacob had a surface faith in that he wanted the benefits of serving God, but not a relationship with God.  What Jacob learned was that when he finally got his eyes off of the material things, it was then that God could show him that the true blessings of God were to be found in a relationship with him, and not in the possession of things.

And I think sometimes we forget that God’s greatest blessings come in the context of his relationship to us. No matter what our life situation may be, God’s desire for a relationship with us never changes.  He wants to be our greatest desire.  God wrestled with Jacob, He fought against his will and his strength, and he pressed out the old Jacob until the only thing left in him was the strength just to cling and to hold on.  He fell into the arms of God, and new life was born in him. 

There is a difference between wrestling and clinging. To "wrestle" is to contend and fight for dominance.  But to "cling" means to hold on by embracing, to resist separation.  Jacob was no longer resisting God, but now he was holding onto God.  Daybreak came, and it was the dawning of a new day. This was a turning point in Jacobs’s life.  He received from God, the blessing!  This was not the stolen blessing from Esau, but his own blessing obtained honestly in the wrestling match with God.

And he said unto him, what is thy name?  And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 

And God's blessing to Jacob was a new name, Israel which means, “A Prince with God or Gods first born son”.   A prince is a male member of a royal family.  He was no longer Jacob the deceiver, the one who stole his brother’s birthright and his father’s blessings, but now He was born again, born with the very nature of God his Heavenly Father, with all the rights and privileges of a Son.

John 3:1-2  Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

God uses a number of different images to convey our relationship with Him. But I like the portrayal of the Father and son relationship that God uses, and I think it is meant to convey something very important to us.

Romans 8:15 “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”.  In Bible days an adopted son was a son deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to carry on his name, and to inherit his estate.  

The term “Abba Father”, is a word that expresses a familiar daily conversation of little children talking to their father.  It’s like a nursery word which has the same meaning of “papa” or “daddy”.  Jaime still calls me Papa when she talks with me.  I think the Bibles definition of Abba, reveals that God desires a very intimate and personal relationship with us, just like He has with His only begotten Son.  Jesus could cry ‘Abba Father”, and now we as God’s children, have the same right as well.  Christians are actual sons of God.  The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. 

There are a lot of people today like Jacob, trying to make it in life on their own, their own plans, their own dreams and schemes, and their own strengths.  They think that life consists in the abundance of the things that they possess.  So they spend their life searching for worldly gain.  Like Jacob, they take matters into their own hands, saying I can make it on my own. 

Jacob searched for ways to gain his fathers inheritance, which would give him prominence and prestige in his family. But the Bible asks, “What does it profit a man, if he were to gain the whole world, and loose his soul”  “Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul”.

Jesus said it’s a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand.  For when the rains came and the winds blew, the house fell.  Buts it’s the wise man who builds his house upon a rock.  For when the winds blow, and the rains came, that house stood firm.

What foundation are we building our life upon?  Is it worldly gain, wealth, prestige and honour?  Or are we willing to loose our life, by surrendering it all over to the will of God so that He may lift us up and give to us a new name, a new life, and a new inheritance through Him.

Jacob won the Blessing not by wrestling, but by clinging.  And we will get the Victory in our life when we cease from our struggling, and give up our own will and throw our arms around our Fathers neck in clinging faith.  It’s in surrendering our life over to God’s will, and yielding Him control of every area of our life, that’s when we truly gain the inheritance of the blessings of the Lord.  I don’t know about you, but I want that kind of Blessing!