Sunday Sermons

Sermon: 10-21-07, Season of Pentecost
Pastor Phil Lee

Title: "Seek the Blessing"
Text: Genesis 32:22-32
Theme: seek God’s blessing; seek to be a blessing

Introduction

• The Olympics are coming soon (8-08) to the city of Beijing, China, and so we will once again have the wonderful opportunity to observe, up close and personal, the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling! I can’t wait!
• The truth of the matter is that many people don’t like wrestling because it’s so sweaty, aggressive, and awkwardly intimate. But, Greco-Roman wrestling does provide a metaphor for just the kind of struggle that God desires that we enter into with Him.
• God desires an intimate struggle with us, so that God can bless us and use us to be a blessing to others.

Point (review OT text – Gen.32:22-32)

• It was night, and Jacob was alone. (Nighttime is a time that many of us experience lonely struggles).
• A man wrestled with Jacob. There is no introduction to this “man,” no transition. It’s abrupt, and there are no details: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” No lantern, or flashlight to provide light – it was pitch black!
• The identity of this “man” has been a mystery to many biblical scholars, but it’s clear that Jacob understood that this “man” was God.
• The wrestling match was a virtual tie until the “man” put Jacob’s hip out of joint. (God humbles himself to wrestle with us, even desires that we wrestle with Him, yet God still has ultimate control.)
• Jacob wanted a blessing from the “man” (God); Jacob was re-named Israel (one who strives with God); the “man” did eventually bless Jacob. (God wants us to seek His blessing, and when we wrestle with God we will be blessed by God.)
• Finally, Jacob was wounded in the wrestling match and he walked with a limp. (Wrestling with God has consequences, but those consequences include blessings.)

Problem

• Too often we wrestle with God as a form of rejection – we fight against God.
• Sometimes we struggle with deep questions about God’s sovereignty and mercy: Why does God allow bad things to happen…and to us? We sometimes struggle to even believe in such a God, and if we do believe, we struggle to make sense of it all.
• Last week I heard on the radio about a recent poll the focused on what people want for Christmas. Although I didn’t hear all the results, I did hear about #1 and #2. The #1 thing people want for Christmas this year is computers. The #2 thing people want is peace in the world. At first I chuckled, with familiar thought of how superficial we humans can be. But then I thought about it some more. And I thought that, sadly, that really is just about right, it’s an accurate reflection of human nature. Sadly, we care more about stuff like computers (I have three – office, home desktop and a laptop!) than we do about peace in our world!
• We do struggle – we wrestle with moral questions and religious issues and social concerns, but often we care more about our stuff than we do about the needs of real people and how God might use us to meet those needs!
• Whether we struggle with the question of why God allows such horrible things to happen in our world (sickness, war, suffering), or wrestle with myriad other moral issues, we do certainly also struggle with our own apathy and lack of compassion for those who are suffering.

Power

• There’s a new so-called “sport” that is quickly growing in popularity these days and it goes by several names, perhaps the most descriptive being the term “Ultimate Fighting.” In ultimate fighting, two contenders enter something like a boxing ring (or cage!) and engage in what might be described as a match that combines boxing, wrestling, and outright mayhem! It’s sometimes politely called “mixed martial arts.”
• Ultimate fighting is what Jacob was doing on that dark, lonely night so long ago when he wrestled with God and pursued God’s blessing. And so, Jacob’s story is an appropriate metaphor for our struggle with God today. Jacob’s story is our story, because God has entered into the arena of struggle with us in this intimate way:
  • [Jesus, though] in the form of God …emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil.2:6-8: 6)
  • [Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds [we] have been healed. (1Pet.2:24)
  • Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing… (Eph.1:3)
  • God is able to provide [us] with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, [we] may share abundantly in every good work. (2Cor.8:9)
• Yes, through the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, God has entered the arena of struggle with us, and God wants us to enter the arena of struggle with Him. And so we do, as we pray and sometimes neglect to pray, as we ask questions and search/study God’s Word and sometimes neglect to do so, as we obey God’s will and as we sin against God by what we have done and what we have left undone, finally returning to God’s gracious forgiveness through the path of repentance and confusion.
• Yes, we wrestle with God, both when we practice a disciplined faith and when we don’t. And as we wrestle, we seek God’s blessing.

Conclusion

• Jacob’s story is our story. So like Jacob, let us seek God’s blessing in our lives and in this congregation.
• And, like Jacob, let us be a blessing to others. Amen.

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