Wrestling With God

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We're in the room. We're just glad that you're here to worship with us. Let's stand together today. And we're going to sing this out. We're going to sing out our praise for the faithfulness of our Father today. Let's do it. ♪ I have felt the hands that bare the scars Reach down and rescue me I have known the love of Father's heart A prodigal now redeemed From where I was to where I'm now It's overwhelming The more and more I see Him move All around me And I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord And I can't help but lift up Shouts of joy And when I think of how good You've been

Faithful now to the end I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord For the blood You spilled to save my life A debt I cannot repay For the cross You bore with open arms Salvation they call my name From where I was to where I'm now It's overwhelming The more and more I see Him move All around me And I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord And I can't help but lift up Shouts of joy And when I think of how good You've been Faithful now to the end I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord Oh I can't help but dance cause I'm free Got no chains on me I'm healed and redeemed Oh I can't help but call on Your name And bury my shame To open my grave Oh I can't help but dance cause I'm free Got no chains on me I'm healed and redeemed Oh I can't help but call on Your name And bury my shame

To open my grave Oh I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord And I can't help but lift up Shouts of joy And when I think of how good You've been Faithful now to the end Oh I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord Oh I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord Oh I can't help but praise You Praise You Lord Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Cross Church. We're so thrilled that you are here with us on this great Sunday. And I know we have a lot of people who are out maybe traveling. It is the first week of spring break. And so maybe you are watching from somewhere else or tuning in by podcast somewhere else. We're thrilled that you are making plans even while you're away to join us on here. I want to point your attention just ahead the next few Sundays is obviously the Super Bowl of Church. Here we are next week. We have Palm Sunday at the end of spring break. Kind of weird calendar this year.

And then as we get into the weekend To April 4th and 5th, we have Easter weekend. I wanna encourage you to bring somebody with you, even begin planning how you are going to serve on that day, attend that day, which service, and we're gonna have thousands of people here ready to hear the good news of Jesus. So be praying with us as we dive into that, okay? Once you grab your Bible and your journal, turn with me to Genesis chapter 32. We're in a series called One Big Happy Family, and this family is anything but one big happy family. It's a sarcastic title, and we've really played into the irony here that this really is not one big happy family, it's an imperfect family, and yet here's the great hope for all of us that God used this family even though they were messed up. And so God can use your family and my family even though we're in imperfect families as well. So today we're gonna dive into one of the most well-known stories of the book of Genesis about how Jacob wrestled with God. In fact, that's the title. We're talking about wrestling with God. So let me pray for you, then we're gonna dive into Genesis chapter 32. Lord, we're talking about wrestling with you today, and there are many people here who they're in a season of wrestling with you,

not sure what you're doing, and really are at a place where they need to hear from you. And so I pray that you'd speak clearly today through your word, and Lord, even as we think about the next couple of weeks of Palm Sunday and Easter, would you prepare all of our hearts to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and it's in his name that we pray, amen. Amen, amen. Well, good morning, everybody. How are you today? Everybody doing good? Wanna welcome in our Pinnacle Hills campus, the 9.30 service there. So hey, folks at Springdale, would you put your hands together and welcome in our church family at Pinnacle Hills. And also I wanna say hi to the folks joining us on the live broadcast on the World Wide Web, and the folks joining us on the Pando app as well. So we got a lot of folks in the room today even though they're not actually in the room, and we're glad all of you are here. So as we begin today, let me say this very important word, whoopig suey. And there we go, all right. I was talking to some folks ahead of time, I was like, you know, we got a couple of things against us

and one thing for us today in terms of people in the room. It's spring break, you know, that sends people away. And then when the Hogs play a late game, that's never good for church the next day. But when the Hogs win, that's great for church the next day. That's always for us. So praise God for all of that, right, amen. Hey, I'm Jeff Crawford. I'm one of your teaching pastors. I get to rotate through and get to be on all the campuses at some point during the course of the seasons. Always glad to be here at Springdale Live and always glad to be with you guys at Pinnacle. I don't get to connect with the 930 service much at Pinnacle because that's usually always Nick, but it's great to be with you folks today. I'm also the president of Cross Theological Seminary. Did you know we have a seminary? We do, and we are graduating our inaugural class in just under seven weeks. How about that? That's pretty cool. And so we got 39 graduates gonna graduate with their Master of Theological Studies degree, and they're gonna go out from the church to the world. That's what we say, from the church to the world. And on May 7th, Thursday, 10.30 a.m. at Pinnacle Hills, we're having our graduation ceremony, and all of y'all are invited. One big happy party.

And listen, it happened because of you. You guys, your generosity is making it possible that all of these students are graduating with no tuition costs. So thank you, thank you. And so if you're free, come celebrate with us on May 7th, 10.30 a.m. Today, we are in Genesis 32. Genesis 32. So if you got your Bibles, you got your journals, you're ready to roll with that. And we're gonna be looking at one of the really, truly, one of the most mysterious passages in the entire Bible. Okay, just gonna set it up that way. It's part of our one big happy family series. We've been in this series for several weeks now. And as Nick said, it is kind of a play on words. So here's the family we're looking at. You got Isaac, and you got Rachel, and husband and wife, and you got their two sons, Jacob and Esau. And we've been watching this family grow and develop and work through all the different seasons of life that families walk through. And this family has a lot of dysfunction going on. And that is an understatement. If you've missed any of the messages along the way, just go back, get them on our app or on the website. But a lot of dysfunction in the family. In today's passage, Genesis 32, in today's passage, Jacob, who is the focus of the story right now,

Jacob is headed home. Jacob is headed home. He's been gone a while. He's headed back home now, possibly to lead the family. But he doesn't know that yet. His mother is dead. His father is dying. He will die in just a few chapters. We'll see that. He has stolen the birthright. and the blessing from his older brother. And he has been gone for 20 years, largely because of that. Bad blood between brothers. But it's 20 years now, 20 years. A lot happens in 20 years, doesn't it? People change in 20 years. He's got two wives himself, that's a whole issue we've talked about. But he's got 11 sons, big family, himself. And a lot has changed in his life. You get the sense that Jacob has started to figure some things out. You know, that happens as we grow and mature, doesn't it? And so he's now ready to head home. He's ready to head home and he's ready to face his brother, whom he had betrayed 20 years earlier. And it is on the trip home that we're gonna look at today. He's on his way home. Jacob is going to have an encounter. It's going to change him forever.

He is, I know this sounds crazy, but he is literally going to wrestle with God. So hold on, hold on to your seats, all right? We're wading into some deep waters today, all right? So if you're new to church, it's okay. Stay close. I'm gonna make sure nobody drowns, okay? By the way, did you know that the first job I ever had, first job at 16 years of age that I ever had earning money was at Creekmoor Pool in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Did y'all know that? I was not a lifeguard. I was not a lifeguard. I was the cashier. I sold tickets. But stay close. I'll make sure nobody drowns today, all right? And with that, we should probably pray, right? I'm gonna ask you, let's pray one more time. God, we come before you today and we ask you to be close to us as we are trying to draw close to you. God, would you walk us through this passage? You walk us through the passage. I pray that your Holy Spirit would just take us by the hand and walk us through one of the really most interesting, mysterious stories in the whole Bible. Open our ears to hear, open our hearts to receive. And God, would you pray? I pray, would you be with me as the preacher?

I don't want to lead anyone astray, so guide my tongue and my voice to say all that you want me to say and prevent me from saying anything you don't want me to say. And I pray, Father, that this message would be covered by the blood of Christ. And I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. And everyone said, amen, amen. All right, so let's look at the story. Are you ready? Genesis 32, we're gonna start in verse 22. We're gonna read through verse 32, all right? And we're gonna read slowly because we don't want to read too fast because there's some interesting things going on here. Let's look at the first few verses, starting in verse 22. It says, the same night, so remember, Jacob's on his way home. The same night, he arose and he took his two wives, his two female servants, his 11 children, and he crossed the ford of the Jabbok, a river. He took them and he sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. And then Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. The breaking of the day. We're gonna stop right there because that's really enough to get us started. You know, sometimes God does things in our lives

that just make us wonder, doesn't he? You ever been there before, you know, like you ask God the question, like what's going on? Hey God, what's going on here? Or God, what are you doing? You ever found yourself asking those questions of God? Maybe today you walked in here today or you walked in or you tuned in and you, this is exactly where you're at in your life. You're wondering what God's doing because something is happening in your life right now and it's just thrown you completely off center. If you've ever felt that way or feeling that way, this was the message. This is the message for you. Because God does this. I mean, God just, he tends to do things that just make us wonder, like what are you doing? What's going on here? You know, if we were to take a step back and I wanna do that real quickly because we're really far into this story now, this one big happy family. story, when you take a step back and you look at the family that we're looking at, you look at the big picture of the family, you sort of have to ask yourself, what is, what's really going on here? And I'm talking like 30,000 foot view of this family. You know, we've been in Genesis since the fall, the journal that we handed you started really in Genesis, we've been plowing our way through Genesis, and when you look at the big, big picture, starting in Genesis, God creates Adam and Eve, he creates man and

woman, he puts them in the Garden of Eden, and the first thing he says to Adam and Eve is be fruitful and multiply, right? That's what God says to do. And then he selects a guy named Abraham, and it's Abraham's family that Jacob, or that Isaac and Rachel have come from that we're looking at, and now Jacob, and when he selects Abraham, he says to Abraham, quote, I will make you a great nation, so that sort of fits with the be fruitful and multiply thing, right? I'm going to make you a great nation. But then you have his wife, Sarah, who can't get pregnant. She's infertile. And so you have to wonder, like, okay, God, what's going on? Be fruitful, multiply, I'm going to make you a great nation, and my wife can't get pregnant. I know that's probably where some of you are dealing with that exact issue today, and some of you have dealt with that issue. And then the story gets even stranger, because through an act of God, Sarah does get pregnant, and they have a son, Isaac. And you know, he grows up, like sons do, and then he gets married to a woman. And then Rebecca, she can't get pregnant. She's infertile as well. What's that about, God? What's going on here? But then through an act of God, an act of God, she does get pregnant, and then Jacob, Jacob marries the love of his life, Rachel, and so here you've got these three women, Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, you know where I'm going with this, and then Rachel can't get pregnant. You have three generations now, three wives, three women, all of them barren, and it takes a supernatural act of God for Rachel to get pregnant. And you put all that together and you have to just ask yourself, like, what's going on here?

What are you doing, God? Because God is doing something. I mean, when you see things like this, if you're paying attention, and hopefully we are, and we are this morning, you have to ask yourself what's going on, because God's doing something. I mean, imagine, imagine this, a nation born from barren wombs. What could be more confusing than that? So the point is, something is going on here in this family. Something bigger than you can see in the moment. And the key here in what I'm talking about right now is that all three of these women required divine intervention in order for them to get pregnant. Hmm, what's that about? I don't know. I can't dive into the depths of all of that, but could it be, I don't know, I'm just thinking, could it be that God used the barren wombs of three women in Genesis to prepare us one day for the pregnancy of a virgin in the Gospels? I don't know. What are you doing, God? What's going on here? And so now, bringing it really in tight today, now you've got Jacob, the story of Jacob. So he's a liar. He's a thief. He's an imposter. And he's supposed to lead the family? This is who God has picked? Something's going on here. Something's going on here. On the surface, this is crazy. Clearly, if we go back and we consider all that's happened in our story so far, clearly Jacob has been wrestling internally with who he is and what's about to happen in his life.

He's... on the edge of meeting a brother he has betrayed 20 years earlier, he sent his whole family on, he needs some time alone to like wrestle internally and get ready for what's coming the next day. That all makes sense. And in the midst of all of this internal wrestling, the text tells us in verse 24, that a stranger shows up in the middle of the night, and Jacob is forced to literally physically wrestle this unknown stranger. What is going on? What are you doing, God? Anybody here or listening at Pinnacle or online, anybody here ever spent an entire night wrestling with God, up all night with God, ever been there? And then you have to look really closely at the words of the text. I'm gonna put this on the screen. I'm gonna put on the screen these three, because this is what we get in the text. We get that Jacob was at the river Jabbok, I should have a K on the end, Jabbok, and that he wrestled. So Jacob is at the river Jabbok and he wrestled, that's the English, but in the Hebrew, which is how this comes to us originally, here's what it would sound like. Jacob is Yacob, Jabbok is Yabok,

and the Hebrew word here, there's several, but the Hebrew word here for wrestle is Abok. I don't know, anybody see something kind of like sticking out at you? Yacob at the Yabok, and they Aboked. Listen to me, words mean things. The text is inspired by God. And when you see things like this, that is God's way of saying, stop, look, take a closer look. I'm trying to tell you something. This is God's way of saying, learn from this. Right, so are you tuned in now? Are you focused? And really the big, big question so far, we're only a few verses in, the big question is this, who is this man? Like who is this man that just shows up in the middle of the night and like jumps on, Jacob and starts wrestling, who does that? And who is this? So let's keep going, we gotta keep going, verse 25. When the man, the mysterious man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. And then the man, he said, let me go, for the day has broken.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And the man said to him, what is your name? Okay, I'm gonna stop right there. Stop, stop, stop, everybody stop, okay? Because once again, if you go too fast, you miss stuff. You gotta stop. The man looks at Jacob and says, what is your name? Now, if you're paying attention in the big story, okay, you will know and you'll see that this is the second time in our story of Jacob's life that he's been asked this question. The first time Jacob was asked this question, what is your name, was 20 years earlier. It was in Genesis 27. He's feeding a bowl of stew to his dad. Is ringing any bells for anybody? His dad senses that something's not quite right. Dad's blind. And his dad asks his son, what is your name? And Jacob takes on a different identity. He doesn't own who he is, he owns who his brother is. 20 years later, a lot has changed in Jacob's life and he gets the same question a second time. What is your name? And he said, Jacob. My name. You get the sense that Jacob is finally figuring out who he is, right? Oh, but watch out. out. Here comes the curveball. And then the man said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob,

but your name shall now be called Israel. Everybody say Israel. Israel. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. And then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And right there, the man blessed him. And so Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. And then the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip because God, he, the man, the stranger, touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh. OK. Wow. All right. Here we go. Overload. What just happened there? So much going on. So many questions, right? You got questions? I got questions. Like, why did the mysterious man want to change Jacob's man? Why does he refuse to tell Jacob his name? And what about verse 30? What about verse 30, which suggests that this man is actually God? Huh? God in human form? Is that even possible? I mean, is our God the kind of God that would stoop as low as to become one of us? Got to pay attention. And, OK, if this mysterious man is God, then why couldn't he beat Jacob? That's a good question, right? Questions, questions, questions. But here's the deal. Have you ever had so many questions for God, and you got no answers? You ever been there before? Just question, God, why? God, where? God, how? And here's the biggest question of all. Why is God wrestling with Jacob in the first place? So many questions. All right, confession time. I can't answer all these questions. Some of that has to do with time. There's always a clock ticking, isn't there? And I got no—I mean, there's too many questions. And these are all good questions. And there's probably more. You may even have some questions you're thinking about that I didn't even read off, that I didn't mention. I can't answer all your questions. Time is one of the reasons. It just takes too much time that we don't have that this morning. We don't have that right now. And quite frankly, and I hate to admit this, because I've been to school a lot, but there's also just a lack of understanding. Try as hard as I might, I don't know. I don't know. But what if we think about this differently this morning? What if, it just occurs to me, what if the point of all of this we've been reading,

what if the point is not to get answers? It's almost like God overloads us on purpose, because the point is not to have our questions answered. What if, you have to hang with me here, okay, what if the point of all of this is simply to wrestle? You're like, Jeff, what? Okay, what do you mean? Didn't see that coming. What do you mean? Let me see if I can explain it this way. And I've always said that getting married and becoming a father has been one of the greatest systematic theology classes I ever could have taken. Like, I feel like I understand God as a heavenly father so much more after me being able to be blessed as being an earthly father. And now being blessed as a grandfather, I'm getting some more layers of even that. You know, as a dad, one of my very favorite things, one of my very favorite things that I loved to do with my kids when they were little, you know what it was? I loved to wrestle with them. You know what I'm talking about? I just love to wrestle with them. I love to, like, just grab them and hold them and roll them around. Now here's the deal. I'm bigger. I'm stronger. I can pin them every time. And when I wrestle with my kids when they were growing up, and now I get to wrestle with my grandkids. It's super fun. I just love the whole thing of just, like, getting down on their level and, like, getting down on all fours and just letting them jump on me, you know? I love making them think they can win. And you know what? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I let them pin me. Sometimes, most of the time, because I want them to know who's boss, I win. I pin them and I win. But here's the deal, and this is the most important thing I've got to say to you. From my perspective, as a father and as a grandfather, the point is never to win. Winning has nothing to do with why I wrestle my kids and grandkids. I just simply love to have them that close and to wrestle with them in that way. You see, it's not about the end. It's about the wrestle. Does that make sense? Are you tracking with me? Are you following me? Listen, what if the greatest thing God can do when you're hurting and when you're suffering and when you're suffering and when you're broken and when you're confused and when you have questions and cannot find the answers anywhere, what if the greatest thing God can do is to just simply come close on your level and grab you and hold you and keep you up all night long and refuse to let you go

and pin you and hold you down, not because He hates you, but because He loves you this much? And here's the thing. Listen to me. The act of wrestling with God, that is what changes us. Not the answers to your questions. That doesn't change you. What really changes you is embracing the wrestle, man, like leaning into the wrestle. And it doesn't matter who wins. It's not about winning. Oh, it's about wrestling with God. And you know, Jacob was changed in two ways. There was a physical scar, so to speak, that he carried with him the rest of his life. And you know, wrestling with God will sometimes do that. You'll walk away and you'll be marked in a way that people can see. Incidentally, we don't ever see Do you see that Jacob complains about that? Hmm. It's almost like it was a trophy from the wrestling match. But listen to me, the second way God changes Jacob, because wrestling changes us, the second way he changes us, we sometimes move past this a little too quickly. Look at this. Verse 28, one more time. He says, the name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. Now get this, get this. You wanna know what the name Israel in Hebrew means? It means to wrestle. To wrestle. I know, questions, more questions. Listen. I'm about done, but listen to me. There can be what I call twisted thinking that sort of gets into our minds for those of us who go to church a lot.

And the twisted thinking goes something like this. Hey, if you struggle trusting God, something's wrong with you. If you struggle trusting God, just taking it from God, then something is wrong for me. You must lack faith. You need to repent of that. You need to just get over that and trust him. Whatever you do, don't admit to anybody in church that you're struggling trusting God. Don't do that, for sure. Keep it to yourself. But then we have the book of Psalms. And will you hang with me here, okay? I'm about to tie it all together, I think, I hope, I pray. Then you have the book of Psalms. You know what the book of Psalms is? For those of you who are newer to the faith and your Bible has this large book right in the middle called the Psalms. You know what the Psalms are? The Psalms are the prayer book of the church. They're prayers. And they're written by really, really godly people, mostly David, David wrote most of them. And the Bible says of David that he was a man after God's own heart. I got a feeling these two guys wrestled a lot. And here's how Psalms, the prayer book of the church, fleshes things out.

Yo, you know, if you struggle trusting God, something's wrong with you. But then we have Psalm 13. Look at this on the screen. How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Anybody in the room here or at Pinnacle, anybody ever cried out to God, oh God, how long? You've been there before? You ever asked God that question? How long? If you've ever cried out to God, how long? You're joining the prayer book of the church and those who have wrestled with God. Then you have Psalm 10. Look at Psalm 10 on the screen. Why, why, oh Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Has anybody in here ever asked God why? Anybody in here ever asked God why? Maybe you were told, oh, you should never ask God why. You should just accept it and take it. But then the Psalms tell us, the prayer book of the church tells us that when we wrestle with God, we're probably gonna ask the question why. And that's okay.

That's okay. And then there's Psalm 22. Some of you know this one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? From the words of my groaning, oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer. And by night, but I find no rest. Anybody here today ever cried out to God, God, where are you? You ever cried out to God with that one? How long? Why? Oh God, why? Where are you? You know those questions, you know what they are? Those questions are God's invitations to come wrestle with Him. And here's the deal, you may not get the answers to your questions. You may not. But if you embrace the wrestle, you will be changed. You know, this makes so much sense when you think about Jesus, doesn't it? You think about it. Jesus, God, taking on a human body, coming down to us. And what did He do? He wrestled with us and for us on the cross. Listen man, if you have never been saved, I invite you today to be saved. Jesus has wrestled sin for you. He has broken the death grip of sin for you. He is the victor. He has pinned sin and destroyed it, and today you can be saved. In just a moment I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray. We're gonna pray at Pinnacle. We're gonna pray online. I invite you to do that. We're gonna pray here in the room. When I say amen, when I'm done praying, at Pinnacle Hills, Cody is going to be on stage to walk you through this invitation moment, and we will have staff at both locations, and you can come today and be saved. Just come, come, and just say I'm ready. I'm ready to embrace the God who has embraced me, and we'll pray with you, and teach you, and show you how you can be saved. It's a free gift. But I do wonder also today, anybody wrestling with God? Anybody have questions for God today? Well, the altar is open. I invite you to

the wrestling mat. I invite you to bring it all to the Lord, to bring it all to the altar today, and just wrestle with God, and let him not necessarily answer your questions, but let him change you. Our staff are here to pray with you. You need a wrestling partner? We'll get down there with you, whatever we can do to serve you. So I'm gonna pray. When I'm done praying, we're gonna sing both locations, and if God's leading you, would you come? I'd ask you to bow your heads all across this room and at Pinnacle. Ask our staff to move into position right now, and let us pray. Oh Father, we come before you. Thank you, God, that you love us so much, that you're willing to come this close, in this way, to grab us, to hold us, to pin us, to refuse to let us go until you've changed us. And God, may we be a people who embrace the wrestle. So my prayer is very simple. Would you save lost people today, and would you heal hurting people today as we come? It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen.