Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Jacob and the Wrestler

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Drawing near to God is perilous. If there’s any place in the Bible where that comes out, it’s here, because when Jacob draws near to God, he finds that God is a wrestler. This is the climactic moment in Jacob’s life. This is the place where Jacob finally finds out what his life means, finally finds out what his main problem is, finally has a transformation of heart. Before this incident, Jacob plays at religion. After this, he’s a changed man. To understand this narrative, we have to 1) look at the whole scope of Jacob’s life and how this brings it all together, and then 2) draw out four practical conclusions for us today. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 8, 1996. Series: Daring to Draw Near. Scripture: Genesis 32:22-32. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Throughout the Bible, we see accounts of people who have had direct extraordinary encounters with God. In today's sermon, Tim Keller is teaching through one of those extraordinary encounters, what happened and what it means for us today. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

This is the story of Jacob. This is the climax of his life. Let me read it to you. That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maid servants and his eleven sons and crossed the Ford of the J-bok. And after he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions, so Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

And when the man saw that 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. And then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak, but Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me." And the man asked him, what is your name? Jacob answered, 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. Jacob said, please tell me your name, but he replied, why do you ask me my name?

And then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place penile, saying, it is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared. And the sun rose above him as he passed penile and he was limping because of his hip. And to this day, the Israelites did not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. And this is God's word. Years ago, there was a book published in Intervarcity Press book and I bought it, I've never read

it, and I can't find it now. And the title of it was by John White and the title was Daring to Draw Near. And I always loved the title. I thought the title says it all and I hope it does because I never read the book. And I was looking for it and I couldn't find it. The reason it says it all is this, first of all, drawing near to God is so all important. In a sense, the whole Bible is about drawing near to God. The whole Bible is about this question, how can we, with all our sins and flaws, stand in the presence of a holy God?

That's what the whole Bible is about. It's about drawing near to God. And actually, if you go to any bookstore in New York right now, you will see there is a lot of concern about spiritual reality, about drawing near to God. It's a tremendous amount of things on the shelves right now, talking about it. But the other thing that's so good about that title,

daring to draw near, is it shows something that you're not going to find in most of those books on the New York bookshelves about drawing near to God and finding a soul and finding spiritual reality. You're not going to hear them say anything about this, but the title is very right in saying that it's daring to draw near. Draw near to God takes guts. Draw near to God is perilous.

Now, Rudolf Otto, no Christian for what I can tell, who wrote that very seminal work of, in a sense, a sort of religious anthropology, nearly part of the 20th century called the idea of the Holy. And he just studied religions, and he just recognized that it was almost universal, that when people came in any culture, in any religion, people came into the presence of the divine, they found it very disturbing. They found it very frightening.

It was perilous. And you see, if there's any place in all the Bible that talks about the fact that drawing near to God is dangerous, drawing near to God is dangerous. Drawing near to God is perilous because when you draw near to God, you're drawing near to the wild center of the universe and you're trying to ride the whirlwind. If there's any place where that comes out, it's here. Because Jacob, when he draws near to God, finds that God is a wrestler. And therefore, we have to take a look at this.

This is gonna tell you everything, really, in this one passage, if there's any place it tells you about, it's gonna tell you this, that to draw near to God is perilous, that God, the God you draw near to is a wrestler. So what can we learn about drawing near? Actually, there's a series, if you're looking carefully in the bulletin,

I'm going to give you a series of talks this fall on what does it mean to get near God? How do you draw near God? What is that? And I want to start with this. What do we learn about drawing near to God from this incident? Now, the only thing I can tell you is this is one of the great stories in the Bible. And unfortunately, I could only print the climax because the story is the whole story of Jacob's life. This is the climactic moment in Jacob's life.

This is the turning point. This is the place where Jacob finally finds out what his life means and finally finds out what his main problem is and finally changes his basic fundamental life strategy and has a transformation of heart. Before this incident, Jacob plays it religion. After this, he's a changed man. This is where Jacob meets God. This is where Jacob draws nearest to God.

This is it. And this is the resolution of everything in his life and to understand the incredible drama of this. This is one of the most amazing pieces of narrative in the Bible. And therefore, in all of literature, you can't read this. If you're a writer, read this. It is astonishing with what economy of words, the writer, the author, is able to paint this incredibly vivid picture.

But if you're going to understand this narrative, we have to actually take a look at the whole scope of Jacob's life. And I've been thinking about how to do this, and there's no other way to do it. Let me tell you the story of Jacob's life, and how this brings it all together. And then, after we've looked at the narrative,

we'll draw out several very practical conclusions for us today, now, here. Now, the story of Jacob's life kind of goes like this. You can't understand the problem Jacob has and the climactic moment that we've come to in Jacob's life, unless you understand the sin of Isaac, his father, and the sin of Jacob. Now, Isaac was given a promise from his father Abraham, who was given this promise by God himself. God came to Abraham and said, I have a mission for you.

I want you to save the world through your family. God says, this world is hurting, this world is a mess. I am going to send a Messiah. And he's going to be one of your descendants. And therefore, he says, Abraham, in every generation of your descendants, I will choose one child who will be in a sense the Messianic child. That person will bear the Messianic line.

And you must pass your faith on to that child. And I will come near to that child and I will bless that child and I will nurture and protect that child and through him will come another messianic child until someday the messianic child is born in. And therefore you see God comes to Abraham and says, I will choose, I will give you the Son of promise. And through Him and through the one who comes from Him and through the final one that comes from Him, the world will be saved. Well, Abraham, you see, finds Isaac, the Son of the promise, and that's a whole story.

But then he says to Isaac, now Isaac, the same thing will be with you. God will choose one of your children to be the one, to be the leader, to be the messianic child, to be the one who he blesses and draws near. And so Isaac says, wow, okay, great, this is tremendous. What a privilege, what a mission. I save the world through my family. This is great. And twin boys are born to him. Twins. Isaac marries Rebecca. And Rebecca gives birth not to one, but to two. Esau and Jacob. And Esau comes out first with Jacob holding

on. So Esau is the older of the two, but God sends a prophecy to Rebecca, and therefore a prophecy to the family. And through that prophecy, God says, the younger is the one. Actually, if you want to know how the prophecy went, the prophecy is, thus say of the Lord, the elder will serve the younger. The first one out will serve the last one out. And therefore, he said to Isaac and Rebecca, I have chosen Jacob. Jacob is the one. Jacob is the Messianic child. And as they grew up, Isaac didn't like the choice of God. Isaac, now, at this point,

you have to surmise. But as far as I can tell, as far as we can tell, Esau was a man's man, as some people would say. There's a man's man. He was impulsive. He was violent. He was impetuous. He was shallow. I'm just telling you this story, okay? All right, I'm just telling you this story, okay?

All right, I'm just telling you this story, you know? And you see, Isaac saw himself in Esau in a way he didn't see himself in Jacob. And Jacob was much more like his mother. Isaac didn't see himself in Jacob. He saw himself in Esau and therefore he loved Esau more. And he favored Esau and he let everybody know. And you see he hid behind something which was that in that culture at that time, the oldest child, even fraternal twins, Jacob and Esau were fraternal twins.

But you see, in that culture, the first one out was the oldest and the oldest was very important because the laws of primogeniture at that time meant that if a family had wealth, you didn't divide it up equally amongst the children because then the family would lose its standing. So the oldest child always got most of the wealth, and then the other children got pieces, of course, endowments, but the oldest child got most of the wealth

in the estate, so the family could keep it spot in society. And what Isaac did was he hid behind the fact that everybody would have expected that Esau would be the one, who would be the leader. Esau would be the one who would be the favored. Esau would be the one to whom the birthright would come, that the leadership of the family would come and the money would come and theright would come, that the leadership of the family would come, and the money would come, and the estate would come. And if you don't understand the real meaning of the Bible, the Bible is not a set of esophabes, each with a little moral.

The Bible is a story of the unfolding, revealing by God of his salvation to the world. And if you don't understand that God had come to Isaac and said, I'm saving the world through you, Messianic child, I'm gonna choose one, and Jacob's the one, and Isaac said, no. And he hid behind the culture. And he resisted God's will, and he didn't like God's will, and he wanted control of his life.

If you don't understand that, when you read the story of Jacob, you will think the all the sins of Jacob is absolutely not. The first and in a sense, the primary sin is Isaacs. Isaac said, when the time comes, I will give he saw the birthright officially. He was very, very old and as the story goes on, he's very old and he's, you know, about to die. And of course, people who are very old and about to die, they know that they may live for quite a long time,

but they have to put their house in order. So he says, the day is coming. I want Esau to come in, and I will officially bless him. And I will officially give him the leadership of the family. But you see Isaac's family is unlike any family in all the earth. And what Isaac was doing was he was resisting God and hiding behind his culture and saying,

well, everybody does it this way. And Jacob grew up knowing that his father was standing between him and his destiny and Esau, in particular, was standing between him and his destiny and he grew up representing it. And when the day came that Isaac, ancient old Isaac, who was now blind, was to give Esau the birthright. The story goes this way. Jacob dresses up as he saw and comes running on in. As this now says, essentially, I won't, you know, go into all the details. He says, Father, I'm here. I want my blessing.

And Isaac experiences a little bit of cognitive dissonance because the voice isn't quite right, but the smell is right, the closer right, and all that. And he gives Jacob, thinking he's Esau, the blessing. He gives him the promise. He gives him the leadership. Now Jacob runs on out and Esau comes in and says, here I am. And this is in Genesis 27, and it says Isaac began to tremble violently. That's very significant.

I'll get back to that in a minute. He began to tremble violently. And Esau says, what's the matter, Father? And Isaac says, if you're Esau, who did I just give the blessing to?" And they both knew it was Jacob. Now, Esau turns to Isaac and says, so what? He gets very angry at what Jacob has done, but he says, well, bless me anyway. And you see, when the modern reader, in fact, almost any sensible reader at first, unless

you understand the theology behind this, you say, yeah, everybody knows that a contract that is, those of you who are lawyers, you all know, is any contract that is predicated on absolutely fraudulent grounds will easily be overturned by a court. There was nothing magic about the blessing. You know, ESA was saying, okay, so he did that. So what? You still are, you can still give me the blessing, you can still give me the birthright, you can still make me the leader of the family. I mean, so what if he did that? The fact that Jacob did that shows on the one hand,

he was superstitious. And on the other hand, that he was just vindictive, he wanted to show his father, you know, he wanted to give his comeuppance. So Esau says, okay, it was stupid, it was vindictive, it was mean show his father, you know, he wanted to give his comeuppance. So he saw, I said, okay, it was stupid, it was vindictive, it was mean, but I can be the blessing. And you know what?

It says, Isaac trembled violently. And Isaac said, I have blessed your brother, yay, and he shall be blessed. Now, what is he saying? You know why Isaac is trembling? He's not trembling with anger. He's fighting God and he knows suddenly

that all his life has been fighting with God and God has done this. God has said to Isaac, Isaac, you've been fighting me and my sovereign choice will be upheld. And Isaac refuses to take the blessing away from Jacob. He says, I have blessed him, and ye he shall be blessed. Isaac is repenting. Isaac says I'm done fighting God, but he saw his not.

And he saw that day swears that he will kill his brother. And Jacob, you see, thinking in a sense that he had come around. Now, see, here's the sin of Jacob. Jacob sits then, says, the big problem in my life is Esau. Esau stands between me and my father. Esau stands between me and my destiny. And why in the world did God give me a father like this? And therefore, Esau in his mind said, these people are opposing God. The prophecy came from God. I'm the leader, I'm the Messianic child, I'm the chosen one.

But instead of trusting God, he takes matters into his own hands. He goes after his father, goes after his brother, he says, well, he rationalizes, he says, well, of course, I could trust God, I could serve this man, this father, I could tell the course, I could trust God, I could serve this man, this father, I could tell the truth, I could be honest, I could serve him, but I shouldn't,

I don't have to do that. I can't trust God to give me my destiny, I have to help him. And so in a sense, you see, what Jacob is doing is he's doing the very thing he hates his father for. Instead of trusting in God's grace, he says, I gotta take matters in my own hands and it blows up because his brother does not repent.

His brother is a man's man, impetuous, shallow, impulsive, and he just doesn't see. He saw, I still got his cultural blinders on. He says, I'm the oldest. This isn't right. What's going on? I will kill Jacob. And Jacob has to flee from everything he's trying to get whenever you take matters into your own hands, whenever you think you can improve on God, whenever you can say, well,

you know, God wants to bless me. If I tell the truth, I'm going to lose this and this and this and this. I'm just going to have to tell the lie. And it blew up. And Jacob had a run. He had to become a wanderer. He had a runaway, he had a runaway from the very land he was wanting to inherit from his people, from his father and mother. He had a runaway, he had a runaway, he had run to a far land and on the way God shows up,

meets him. Remember Jacob's ladder? And what's so interesting, you can see that Jacob has a very, And what's so interesting, you can see that Jacob has a very, very cool and negotiating kind of relationship with God. When he gets up, after God has appeared to him, trying to build a relationship with Jacob, when he gets up, what's so intriguing is he gets up and Jacob says this, if God will be with me and give me food and protection, and if he will help me finally get home to my land and people safely, I will make the Lord my God. You scratch my back? How's scratch yours?

And you know what's in there? He's saying, Lord God, I don't know why my life's going like this. I'm supposed to be the chosen one. I'm supposed to inherit the land. Everything's going wrong. When are you going to put my life the way it needs to go? I'll be happy to serve you if you finally

get me out of this mess and you got me into it. You gave me this father, you gave me this brother. These are the ones that are doing it. He goes off into another land and you know what? God does. God prospers him, he gives him a family and he gives him wealth and he turns Jacob into an independent man, independently wealthy, someone who can come back.

And finally, in chapter 32, the first part of this chapter in which this story is given to us, Jacob finally decides, I'm going to go home and it's high noon. There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we have heard in recent years. What does the Bible have to say about it? And how does God's Word help bring about justice? In Tim Keller's book, Generous Justice, you'll discover that the Bible gives us a rich and complex understanding of what justice is and what it means to live it out. The book provides a biblical framework for justice, one that calls every

Christian to a life of generous justice, fueled by grace. Generous justice is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world. So request your copy today at Gospel and Life.com slash give. That's Gospel and Life.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. He gets his all of his family, he gets all of his wealth, all of his cattle, his huge entourage, and they decide to go home. And the reason this is this is Dhanun is because Jacob finally says, look, there's only one thing keeping me from really having the life I want to have. Yes, God has prospered me, but he still hasn't given me what is my right.

And that is, I don't have my land, I don't have my family, I don't have my people, I'm going back and I have to face the one person who's really the main problem of my life, Esau. I've got to find a way to appease Him. I've got to find some kind of way to flatter Him. I've got to find some way to defang Him. I've got to do something, but I'm going to do it. And the first part of chapter 32 is extremely interesting because here you see Jacob. And Jacob is the most, he has now become the ultimate spin doctor.

He has become the most absolutely unspontaneous person you can possibly know, always calculating, always manipulating, and here's what he decides to do. He takes his entourage as they approach home, and he knows that Issa could come out with an army and just destroy them all. So what he does is, first of all, he divides his entire family into two sections. And here's what he says. It tells us that in verse 7 of chapter 32, he says, in great fear and distress, Jacob divided the people who are with him

into two groups, thinking if Esau comes and attacks one group, the other will escape. The first thing he decides is I'll divide up two, so if Esau attacks one, the other will be able to get away. And then the second thing he does is he brings together an absolutely enormous gift. We're told in verses 13 to 17 that he decides to make a gift of hundreds of goats, hundreds of sheep, hundreds of cattle, hundreds of cows. It's not just a gift, it's an endowment. And what's so intriguing, here's this spin doctor, instead of sending it all at once, he sends it out in seven herds, first the goats, then the

sheep, each with a separate set of servants. Each one was supposed to say this. They come to Esau and they're supposed to say, these are a gift to my Lord Esau from your servant Jacob, more is coming and he is coming last of all. And so Esau gets wave after wave after wave of wealth. Jacob is raining down money, raining down wealth, talking so humbly, you are my Lord, I am your servant, doing everything he possibly can do. On the other hand, he doesn't trust he so further that he can throw him. You know, in the back

he's going to do everything he possibly can. And the final thing he does, and finally we get here to the very final thing he does. In verse 22, that night, Jacob got up and after he divided his group and he'd sent everyone on ahead and he'd sent the gift ahead. It says he got up and he took his two wives, his two maid servants and his eleven sons and crossed the Ford of the J-bok. And after he'd sent them across the stream, he sent them all over with his possessions, and so Jacob was left alone. Why? Jacob was going to meet Esau by himself.

On the one hand, it's very cagey. Actually, for two reasons, it's cagey. One is, if Jacob is killed, then everybody else gets away. But on the other hand, it's incredibly vulnerable, and it's tremendous spin. Jacob stands before Esau. He is putting himself utterly at Esau's mercy, so maybe, maybe Esau will have pity.

All the gifts, the vulnerability. And what Jacob, see, what Jacob is doing is, he sends everybody away, and he's left alone, and he says, finally, I'm going to meet the guy with who I've been fighting all my life. I'm going to meet the man who is the main problem of my life, and I'm going to have it out. Maybe he'll kill me. Maybe I'll finally be able to get the man who is the main problem of my life. And I'm going to have it out. Maybe he'll kill me.

Maybe I'll finally be able to get the goods on him. Maybe I'll finally be able to pull the wool over his eyes. He is kind of stupid. But I am going to get my life back on track. My life has been off track because of him and he is the main problem of my life. And this is the meaning of my life is to deal with Asal and I'm going to do it tonight. I'm going to meet the man I've been fighting all my life. And we're told in verse 23, 24, Jacob was left alone.

And can you see what it's saying? It's almost like Jacob standing in the dark right at the bank and all the rest of the people and his possessions, they've left. And maybe he's hearing the very last of the sheep kind of go across. And he's all by himself, and suddenly he realizes there's someone behind him. He suddenly realizes he's not alone, and he turns, and this mysterious figure attacks him. And it says, a man wrestled with him till daybreak. You know what that means? That means he's fighting for his life,

but they're absolutely matched in strength. That's the only way you can have a rest of the match that goes on for hours. Jacob couldn't prevail, and the mysterious stranger couldn't prevail. And so all during this time, Jacob's saying, who is this? I expected to be wrestling with a man who's really ruined my life, Esau.

I expected to really have it out, really resolve my life, really get my life on track. Who the heck is this? But then we get to this astonishing verse. It says, when the man, this is obviously near daybreak, when the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Now, if any of you have ever even had a dislocated finger and I have once, you know what unbelievable pain. And at this point, the man dislocates Jacob's hip. It's so bad that he never can walk again, right? He was in utter pain and the moment that happens

the contest is over. Now what's so astonishing is they've been wrestling till daybreak. And verse 25 says, the man could not overcome Jacob. And actually, if you can go down to verse 27, he said, verse 26, the man says, let me go. So all the indications have been to Jacob up to now, this guy is an equal with me. But you see that word touched. That is exactly what the word in Hebrew literally means. At this point, this mysterious stranger does not grow.

It doesn't say he grabbed. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say grab then pulled. It says he touched. He reached over and he touched. And Jacob's entire leg went paralyzed. The whole thing was over and the, at that point, the mysterious stranger revealed that he had incredible power, unbelievable strength, and that he had just kept it in reserve, he had kept it down, he had voluntarily kept himself from absolutely wiping Jacob out like that. And the battle's over, but something happens.

The minute Jacob is touched like that, the minute Jacob sees that supernatural strength, he suddenly realizes who this is. And at that moment, he realizes what the real meaning of his life is. He realizes what his real problem is. And he suddenly realizes he had been all wrong. The real problem of his life is not what he thought. And the real meaning of his life is not what he thought. And you know what?

You can never have a real life change unless something comes in and reveals the fundamental foundations of your life. And shows you that you've been wrong from the beginning about what your life means, and wrong from the beginning about where your real problem is and what the real solution is. And in a flash, Jacob saw it,

and he changed utterly his strategy. Because now look, look with me, I'll tell you what the strategy is, then I'll draw out those lessons. It says Jacob was alone, the man touched the socket of Jacob's hip. And then the man said, why are you still holding on?

Listen, when you have, when what he did to Jacob meant Jacob knew now, he couldn't win. Why are you still holding on? Jacob says, over the next two or three verses, I want your blessing, I want your name. Jacob has utterly changed his whole strategy toward God and his whole strategy toward life before he was trying to wrestle with God, trying to control God. You see, suddenly it was revealed

to him in a flash. He thought the main problem in his life was he saw. And he thought that all of his life, the thing that really had messed him up was that he had a wrestle with he saw. And suddenly it is revealed to him, all his life, he's been wrestling with God. He has been trying to control God. He has been, this is to him all his life. He's been wrestling with God. He has been trying to control God.

He has been, this is the meaning of his life. This has been the problem with his life. See, he turned around the dark and he says, finally, I'm going to meet the one with whom I've been battling all my life. Finally, I'm going to meet the one. And I'm going to solve the issue. This is high noon and it was, but it wasn't what he thought. He really did meet the one that he'd been wrestling with all his life.

He'd been angry at God. He'd been mad at God. Why did you give me the father you gave me? Why did I have to lie in order to get my birthright? And then it would blow up. But suddenly he's saying, wait, I didn't have to lie. That was fighting with God. And the reason my life blew up was because I was fighting with one with this kind of power.

And you see, he turns around and instead of fighting with God by force and power, he fights for God. And he suddenly says, I want to see your name. Now, you know what that means? The stuff about the face and the name. When God says, it's daybreak, you know what he's saying? You can't see my face. And when Jacob says, I want you to bless me and I want to see your name,

I want to know your name, what he's actually saying is I want to see your face. This is exactly what Moses went through. Do you remember in Exodus 2033 and 34? Moses says, I want to see your glory and God says, I can't, but I'll show you the back parts. And he put Moses in the cleft of the rock. And when he passed in front of Moses in chapter 34, what does he say? He says, I declare my name. See, to declare his name and to show his face and to reveal his glory is all the same. And Jacob had suddenly realized that what he really wanted all his life was to use God to get his birthright.

And now he suddenly realized, what God had said to Abraham, his grandfather years before, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. I am your reward. You've been using me in Mad because I haven't given you what you've wanted, but you haven't wanted the right thing. My face, my nearness, my presence, and suddenly in a flash, Jacob realizes Jacob was trembling violently like his father years before.

He suddenly realized that he'd been fighting God all his life and he repented. And he moved from struggling with God to struggling for God. And you know what's so interesting? Do you see the ambivalence here? He says, I want to know your name. And God says, you really need to ask. You have to let me go. You can't see my face.

And yet, Jacob names the place penile. And he says, I've seen the face of God and I was spared. Because there's a sense in which until that great day, God always does what he did with Jacob and he always does what he did with Moses. He'll give you a glimpse, but not the full. So what happened was, here's the lessons. Number one, that's the number one.

If you wanna get in your God, he's gonna show you something and he's gonna show you that the main problem in everybody's life in this room, including my life, is that we've been fighting with God, that's the problem. You think, well, why did God give me the Father I had or the mother I had or why didn't God give me the talents I had when I wanted this? You think that the problem is this or that.

You think the problem is Esau. But if God is gracious, someday He'll show you and He'll say, you know what the real problem is? The real problem is you don't trust me. The real problem is you've been fighting with me in my will for your life, and you don't want to depend on my grace.

Instead, you want to fight me every tooth, every bit of the way. You've been fighting with me. I could have wiped you out a long time ago. When you realize that, you're on your way. Number one, God will show everybody I hope here that your real problem is you've been fighting with him all along. Number two, God almost always has to wound you in order to show you this.

Almost always. Jacob had no idea who this was. No idea until God says, let me show you this. Now you know what? The limpy had all of his life with a sign of grace. Why was it a sign of grace? I'll tell you why, because it was so much less than what he deserved. And also, it was given to him to wake him up. I have my limp. Do you have your limp? I have my wounds. Do you have your wounds? You have to have some. But the wounds are the wounds of grace. The wounds are the wounds of a friend. The wounds are the wounds of a person who's trying to do an intervention on you. You see, to get you out of your denial, we've got parallels, we've got analogies.

So the first lesson is that you're all fighting God. The second lesson is that when he wounds you, he'll wound you, usually to show you that, but it's the wounds of grace. Thirdly, the third thing we learn here is the only thing that you really need is the reality of God. Remember we mentioned this several weeks ago in the evening service somebody you might have been here, in the beginning of the book by Larry Krabb finding God. There's a dedication, he dedicates it to a mentor of his, a friend of his, I don't remember the name,

but in that dedication he says, I dedicate this to Mr. So-and-so, who prayed that God would let his cancer come back if it meant getting nearer to God. And in the last year, he found God in a way he never had found him before, just before he died of cancer. Now, if you hear that, you hear a man saying, bring anything into my life, or another way of putting it, is take anything away from my life.

Rip anything out of my life as long as I have your face, as long as I have your name, as long as I know you, as long as I have you in my arms, my arms. Jacob says, I want you in my arms. He was still fighting, he was still holding on. Externally, the action looked the same as before. He was still very active, but now he was holding on and he says, I want you. If you think it's crazy for a man to say, take anything from my life, as long as I

have your reality, you know what that proves? It proves that you do not know that reality yourself. I don't want this to sound harsh in any way. Anybody who says, that's crazy to pray for cancer just so I can have you or to say, all that matters is I have you, it doesn't matter. That's crazy. That shows you've never tasted it because anyone who's tasted the reality of God knows that anything is worth losing for this

and nothing is worth keeping if I'm gonna lose this. Christian friends, how can you do what Jacob did? How can you wrestle for the reality of God and the nearness of God? What is the analogy? What does it mean for you to hold on like Jacob and say, I will not let you go till you bless me. Here's it.

I suggest two things. Number one, pray, even when you don't feel like it. And pray even though you don't know how. Put the time in. Put the time in. See, Jacob's a perfect analogy. He's holding onto God and he's hurting. And he's crying and he's probably bleeding. And he doesn't know how to do anything except to say,

all I know is I'm not gonna let go of you. Now, the people who find God are the people who sit down every day, or as often as they can, and they sit down and they say, I'm gonna pray, I have no idea how. I've read all the books, I still don't know how. I've asked Tim Keller, I still don't know how. I've listed it in a comment, I still don't know how.

But I will not stop until you bless me. I'm gonna pray because where else can I go? Oh Lord, this is eternal life. There's no alternative to this. See, see, I helplessly come and say, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do it. I don't know what I'm going to keep doing it.

I won't let you go to it like you bless me. Pray even though you don't feel like it. Pray even though you don't know how to do it. Go and do it. And the other way you can hold on and ask for blessing is obey even when it doesn't seem to make sense. Obey even though it seems impractical.

That's holding on. That's saying, I want a blessing. I am coming. Please come to me. Lastly, so you see, everybody here is fighting God. That's the meaning of your life. So you see that? You don't know who you are.

You'll never make this great change. He was utterly changed after this. He meets He saw after this. Not even as scared. You know why? When you look on the face of God, and know you've been forgiven, there's nobody else's face. You're afraid of any more. Secondly, if you're wounded, it's wounds of grace. Thirdly, the one important thing in life is the reality of God. Go get it. Restful. Hold on. Now, here's one last thing. This

thing teaches us that though Jacob looked on God's face, he wasn't killed. He's amazed. Penile. I looked on the face of God and wasn't killed. Why was he spared? Why did God only touch him? Why did God give him really nothing likely he deserved? In fact, the only pain that came in was really disciplinary pain. Why is the God did not treat him as he deserved? And I'll tell you what the answer is.

Here God comes in and it says, and I wrestled and every commentator I read wrestled with this verse that says, he could not overcome him. It's too strong. Why doesn't it say God just refused overcome him? Why does he say he could not? And I think it's a hint. God, if he had come down into this relationship in power, he could have won the battle and

he would have lost Jacob. And if Jesus Christ had come to earth in power, saying, follow me, he would have won the battle. If he had just said, I'm going to wipe out all evil, he would have won the battle and he would have lost all of us. But Jesus Christ came, just like God came in weakness. Jesus Christ came, just like God came, limiting himself. Jesus Christ came, just like God came in weakness. Jesus Christ came, just like God came, limiting himself. Jesus Christ came, just like God came. And you know what?

He prevailed, like Jacob prevailed. It's really weird. It looks to me like Jacob lost. He lost badly. And yet what does God say? Your name is Yisrael. For you have wrestled with God and you won. You see, Jacob is a perfect picture.

He wins by losing, and Jesus is the perfect picture. He wins by losing, and the reason that Jacob could only get a touch of God's wrath was because Jacob's greater son, the real messianic child, got it all, got it all. If just a touch would do this to you, what must it mean for all of it to come down? Don't you see?

Jacob was saved through weakness. Jacob was saved because of the weakness of God, so were you. How should you treat a God like that? Go get him. Let's pray. Our Father, would you help us? Would you help us? It is no longer a wrestle with God but a wrestle for God.

No longer a wrestle with you, but a wrestle toward you. Show us, oh, it's so many of us as Christians that are sitting here tonight and we don't have the reality of God. We don't have the blessing of God. We don't have the name of God. There's almost no spiritual reality in our lives. Let us like Jacob's sea, that we can come in. And though to come in is very tough, it takes a lot of wrestling to know you.

Nevertheless, you want to bless us. So Father, we come. And I pray that everybody in this room might find out what they need to know in order to know your face Some of us have to start from scratch and just see that we've been fighting with God Surely there's people here tonight that have think this whole thing is nonsense. I'm not fighting with God I may not be very religious. I'm not fighting with God. Would you show them? They think their problems he saw

Some of us know really what our problem is, but we are just not holding on. You blessed him for holding on. You said he won for holding on. So Lord bless us and help us to hold on. We pray in Jesus name. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you'll continue to join us throughout this month as we look at what it means to have an authentic experience with God. If you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope of the gospel.

Thank you again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the gospel and life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.