My Life has been Delivered
Genesis 32: 22-30
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24)
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost is the Old Testament reading Genesis 32. In our Old Testament reading for today we see Jacob wrestling with God. In order to fully understand this passage it will be helpful to give some background information. You may recall that the sons of Isaac were Esau and Jacob. Esau was the eldest son so he was in line to receive his father’s inheritance. But Esau foolishly sold his birthright to Jacob for some food. Later Jacob tricked his father into giving him his blessing instead of giving it to Esau. As you can imagine Esau was very upset and so Jacob fled and moved to a different land. Many years later Jacob returned to the land of his family, the Promised Land. Jacob returned but he was still afraid of his brother. Jacob separated the people who were with him into two groups because he worried that Esau would attack him. If he attacked one group maybe the other would survive. Jacob was afraid. He did not know how his brother would react to him. Jacob was so worried about Esau that he sent a group ahead with gifts with the hope that the gifts would pacify his brother. Jacob was in turmoil because he was worried about what was going to happen to him. He feared for his life. He feared for the life of his family.
God however made a promise to Jacob that He would never leave him. It was a promise that God made to Abraham and Isaac. God made the promise that their descendants would inhabit the land. God made the promise that the Savior of the world would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob remembered the promises of God so he called to the Lord in prayer. He called to the Lord because he was afraid. He called to the Lord because he was in great turmoil. His prayer was recorded in the verses just before our text for today. Jacob said these words in his prayer. “O God of my Father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, Return to your country and your kindred, that I may do you good, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.”
Jacob was alone. He was afraid. He was in turmoil. So He turned to the Lord. He remembered the promises that God made to him. While Jacob waited to see what his brother was going to do, a man came to him and wrestled with him until daybreak. The man was the Lord. Jacob wrestled with God the entire night. The Lord touched Jacob’s hip and put it out of joint. All Jacob could do was hold on to the Lord and cry out for a blessing. God spoke to Jacob and blessed him. Jacob was strengthened because He had received God’s blessing. Jacob struggled in his life. Our Old Testament reading records a time in Jacob’s life that he was in great turmoil. During that time of struggle Jacob wrestled with God. But through that struggle He found out that He had been blessed by the Lord.
It is the same with us. Like Jacob we will struggle in this life. Our struggles can take many different forms. When we struggle we often get discouraged. We sometimes mistakenly think that being a Christian means that we should be free from struggles. So when things go wrong or when we experience sleepless nights we sometimes start to question God. We wonder why God has allowed certain things to happen in our lives. When we struggle we sometimes question ourselves. We wonder if our faith is strong enough. Like Jacob we wrestle with God. But as we struggle God blesses us.
Jacob understood that he could never find his help or deliverance by relying upon his cunning or cleverness. He understood that in times of trouble it would be useless to turn to the things of this world. Jacob knew that the source of his help and deliverance was God. Jacob knew that it was the Lord who blessed Him. Jacob knew that it was the Lord who kept His promises. In his time of struggle, Jacob turned to God.
Paul said this about the Lord in Romans 11. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord! Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen”.
We will not understand everything about God. It is difficult to understand why God allows certain things to happen in our lives. We may not understand everything about God but we do know that He is good. We do know that He has blessed us. He has blessed us through His Son. The Savior that God promised Jacob is indeed Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ blessed us all when He took our place on the cross to pay for our sins. Christ blessed us all when He suffered so that we could stand before God. Christ blessed us all when He defeated death and the grave and gave us eternal life. We have been blessed by the Lord and He has delivered us. He has delivered us from Satan and eternal death. He has delivered us and brought us into the Kingdom of God. We will struggle in this life but as we struggle let us never forget that we have been blessed by the Lord. As we struggle let us never forget that Christ has delivered us from all of our enemies.
God invites us to wrestle with Him in prayer and promises to answer us. God invites us to turn to Him in our times of struggle and promises to deliver us. In this life we will never fully understand God completely but we do know that God is good. Through His Son Jesus Christ we have been blessed. We have the assurance that the Lord is with us. In our epistle reading Paul tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” Indeed God’s Word is always with us and is profitable to us by giving us the wisdom of God and by strengthening our faith. In our Gospel reading Jesus Christ our Lord encourages us to pray to God and keep praying. He gives us the assurance that God hears our prayers and will answer them. If the unrighteous judge gave the widow justice, then we know that our heavenly Father will give us justice. Our loving Father will give to us all good things.
In this life we will struggle but in those struggles we know that God is love. His love is shown to us through the death and resurrection of His Son. God may not tell us everything but He does tell us that we have nothing to fear. He does tell us that we belong to Him. He does tell us that He has a prepared a place for us in His heavenly kingdom. He makes all of these promises to us and we have the assurance that He always keeps His promises. Amen.