Blessed Through the Breaking

Transcript

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[0:00] Our sermon text today comes from Genesis chapter 32 verses 22 through 32. During the night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp. And a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. What is your name? Jacob said, I am Jacob. Jacob said, I am Jacob. Jacob said, I am Jacob. Jacob said, I am Jacob. The man asked. He replied, Jacob. Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him. From now on, you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won. Please tell me your name, Jacob said. Why do you want to know my name? The man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel, which means face of God. For he said, I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared. The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. Even today, the people of Israel don't eat the

[1:39] tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob's hip. Let's pray. God, we ask for your blessing over this word, and we ask that you would speak to us. Lord, would you speak to us? Would you clear our minds to hear what you have to say today? These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

[2:06] We can speak out loud. We don't need a microphone. I just want to hear people shout out their answers. How would you define blessing? An act of favor or goodness? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. You may have a second. A state of wellness. Ooh, a state of wellness. OK.

[3:02] I think that's enough to get us thinking and started. Before we start, I was told that we've been doing top 10s. So we're going to read the top 10s from chapter 5. The top 10 I know how you feels. Folks say these to Amy Kenney when they are trying to empathize with being disabled. Number 10, my friend or my cousin, my coworker, my barista is disabled. So I know how you feel.

[3:37] Number 9, I burned myself out after partying all weekend. So I know how you feel. Number 8, I sprained my ankle back in third grade. So I know how you feel. Number 7, I get exhausted when I walk all day too.

[3:58] Number 6, one time I had an ingrown toenail removed. So I know how you feel about doctors. Number 5, I had to go to physical therapy for six weeks after I busted my knee. Number 4, I was wheeled out after giving birth. So I know how hard wheelchairs can be to use.

[4:22] Number 5. Right now, I have a mental fracture. Right now, I have a mental fracture. Right now, I have a mental fracture. and what that means specifically in the stories, specifically in the story of Jacob as his hip is wrenched but he is also blessed and yet he's left for the rest of his life with a disability.

[5:10] Oftentimes we think of blessing as material blessing. We saw this a lot when we went to Bangladesh. A lot of people were tempted to say, oh I feel so blessed, which really meant I feel wealthier than everyone else around me. And it was a struggle to realize no everyone here is blessed in a different way maybe than how we feel but everyone here is blessed so what does blessing mean? And we're also tempted to say I feel blessed with my health. Right He was meant to meet his brother Esau the following day, and he had no reason to believe that the meeting would be pleasant at all because the last time he had seen Esau had been just after Jacob stole Esau's blessing and Esau had promised to kill him.

[6:34] So decades later, the fear of that coming true finally was haunting Jacob in the night. Throughout Jacob's story, we get the sense that he's striving for something and constantly. He connives and he bribes Esau out of the firstborn birthright by offering him a bowl of soup when he was hungry. Now Esau foolishly gave it to him just because he was really hungry, but that didn't hit the spot that Jacob needed it to hit. So the birthright, wasn't enough and Jacob still searched for something more. He tricked his father into giving him the blessing that was meant for the firstborn, for Esau, but that wasn't quite enough. In fact, when Jacob asked for the name of the son he was blessing, Jacob, or sorry, Isaac was blind at the time and couldn't see which son was which. And so Jacob told him, my name is Esau. So he was blessed under a false name.

[7:48] And when he received that blessing then, that meant it was really technically never really meant for him. So he searched for this something from his father-in-law and from his wife and from his wealth and maybe even from his many sons. His whole life was a wrestling match, looking for that elusive something to fulfill him, but nothing seemed to be enough. And then it comes to him in the middle of the night when he's alone and afraid and wrestling spiritually.

[8:35] He knows that he will not and that he cannot let go of the physical wrestling match, without a blessing and one that is meant for him directly from God. In fact, this time when they ask for his name, he gives them his name. And his name was always, it always left something to be desired. Jacob meant one who was grasping. He grasped at his brother from the womb so that he could be born first.

[9:12] Jacob had no idea that Jacob was a son of God. Jacob had lived a good life. He had wealth. He had family in abundance. But God's blessing only came to him after a time of wrestling and pain. And that's something that we struggle with.

[9:29] We think of blessing as an absence of the wrestling and pain. But for Jacob, it came hand in hand. Sometimes God blesses people, not in spite of their hardships, but through their hardships. When he found himself alone and afraid of what the next day would bring, his wives and his children and his flocks weren't there to comfort him. They weren't even there to provide a distraction. So all the things that have defined his life have been stripped away. And this is an aside. But it's interesting to think about, as we are very close to Ash Wednesday, that's this week, and the beginning of Lent, when we think about fasting and stripping away those things that distract us from God. And it's in this vulnerable and undistracted state that God decides to meet with Jacob in his solitude.

[10:32] God had come to him before. If you'll remember, it was on his way out of Canaan, years, years before. God came to him in a dream with a staircase to heaven and lots and lots of promises and reassurances. But here, God comes to fight Jacob.

[10:55] Those promises and reassurances were still going to come true in the future. But here is where the blessing happens in the fight. The wrestling match lasted all night. But then when night was in, when night was ending, God decided, okay, it's time to speed things up. And here's where we see that God was just allowing the wrestling to continue on. Because all he really had to do was touch Jacob's hip. And his entire socket was wrenched out of place, and he was subdued. And yet still he held on.

[11:34] So why did God wrestle Jacob that night? Why does God take us through the pain? Sometimes it's because he wants to break down our arrogance, or our stubbornness, or our barriers, or all of the above, so that he might bless us, so that we might recognize his blessing. Because we usually learn as a process. When something is just given to us, we don't necessarily hold on to it and cling to it the way we do when we learn as part of a process.

[12:17] It's not an automatic or an instantaneous understanding. And there are some things that we'll only learn specifically through struggles. For example, I can tell you that God is good. In fact, that's how I didn't become a Christian, was from my pastor, as a junior higher telling me that God is good. Because I couldn't believe that God is good, and also God loves me. I couldn't believe those two could go hand in hand. But my pastor constantly preached to us God is good, and I couldn't internalize it until I went through my own process and my own struggle. Because we can't just learn things necessarily in a sermon. So in love, God will sometimes put us in places of pain that will leave us limping. But through the pain, he blesses us by making us feel the truth that he is truly good. In a way that you'll think, oh, I heard that once before, but now I know that and I can internalize it.

[13:33] But then again, we as humans tend to minimize and deny our pain and struggles. When people ask us on the street, how are you? We say, I'm good, how are you? We don't want to get into our pain and our struggles. Part of that is us just being friendly. But part of that is that society taught us that denying our pain is the friendly way to be. So we deny our pain and our struggles as a general rule of thumb. You don't post on Instagram that your life is falling apart and everything is miserable. You post your happy moments and your moments of awesome things that are going on and you say, oh, I'm so blessed.

[14:25] But what if we said, I'm in pain, but God is still good. I am so blessed. We look down on people that have been hurt, that have what we perceive to be weaknesses, or we look down on people with what we have perceived to be disabilities, or we pity them, or they make us uncomfortable.

[14:54] If struggling is one of the ways God blesses his people, then why do we tend to deny our struggles and why do we tend to get uncomfortable when we see others and what we perceive is a disability or what we think their struggle should be? Many of us purposely avoid dealing with these hard things in life.

[15:22] We don't like digging into our pain because it's hard and disruptive and it feels unspiritual. And this might be a part of the reason that we look down on disabilities. But what if God wants to meet us in those places that we're ignoring and suppressing and minimizing? What if the disabilities that we see in other people are actually just another part of what he's working on in their lives and they don't perceive it as anti-blessing at all? What if he wants to bless us in our brokenness? Scripture is full of promises like Psalm 34, 18. The Lord is near, near to the brokenhearted. Or Psalm 51, 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. And then we've been going over the Sermon on the Mount in Sunday school. What about Matthew 5, 3? Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Or Corinthians 12, 9. My power is made perfect in weakness.

[16:42] I want you to very, just a minute or so, turn to one or two people next to you. When was a time that God blessed you or someone you know through weakness? We'll take two minutes. I'll put a timer on. Right here. Right here. Thank you.

[18:15] Thank you. Okay, we'll stop there. But now I want you to take a moment in silence and let God speak to you in this silence. We know that God can speak through our weakness, but we also know that we tend to deny our weaknesses and our pains. So I want you to just think to yourself in the silence. You can write this, you can make a note on your phone, or you can just be silent and think this in your head. What pains are you leaving unaddressed in your life? And we'll take one minute starting now. What pains are you leaving unaddressed in your life?

[20:02] And we'll take one minute starting now. And we'll take one minute starting now. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? of somebody's sin or only as a result of the fall. We see this biblically where people ask who sinned, him or his parents, that he's like this. And we still carry that with us today. We tend to think of this idea of karma even though we don't believe the idea of karma in the Christian faith, but we tend to incorporate that into our ideas anyhow. To a degree, brokenness is a result of the fall, but that doesn't mean that every struggle we face is sin or every struggle we face is inherently bad. It doesn't mean that the things we perceive as struggle in someone else's life need to be prayed away in order to make us more comfortable.

[21:26] Jacob's limp was not cured by God, and yet his life was healed. In fact, his limp came at the same time as his healing, and it came as a reminder to him and all the people that were around him that God had healed his life. In our book, Amy Kenney also references Zacchaeus, which is why we read that in the book. And it's widely understood that Zacchaeus lived with either some type of dwarfism or some type of condition that made him significantly shorter than most people. And Jesus didn't cure him of that because Jesus saw no need to do so, and yet Zacchaeus was healed in his life and blessed all the same.

[22:25] God's blessing often comes to us most dramatically and acutely through pain and suffering. Why is this so? Because pain and suffering tend to make us desperate for God. And this is what happened with Jacob. The fight was over, and his hip had been wrenched, but still Jacob would not let go of God. He's in unbelievable pain. He's in unbelievable pain. So he cries out in desperation for God's blessing. This is a crescendo or a climax in Jacob's life. He's been striving for this his whole life. He's wanted that something that he couldn't quite pinpoint. He's wanted that blessing, but not under Esau's name, but him. He, Jacob, has wanted that blessing. He's looked to his father's approval, to his mother's approval, to his father's approval. He's looked to his wife, Rachel, for love, to his wealth, for value.

[23:30] Some of us do the same thing. But none of those things have given him what he was searching for. So God brought him to a place of desperation so that Jacob would finally understand that God is his blessing.

[23:48] C.S. Lewis wrote, A proud man is always looking down on things and on people. And of course, as long as you're looking down, you cannot see that something is above you. Jacob was looking down. He was proud. He had reason to be. He had wealth. He had inheritance.

[24:12] He had descendants. He had reason to be a proud man. But as long as he was looking down on these things as his blessing, he couldn't look up and say, I see that the true blessing was God and his life. We go through life looking to God for his gifts and seeing God as how we are able to gain the blessings we want without actually seeing him as the true blessing. Our greatest need is God. And God was saying to Jacob and God is saying to us, I am what you need. I am your blessing. God injured Jacob so that Jacob would see his need for God.

[25:01] In agonizing pain that we can't even imagine or most of us can't, Jacob was desperate for the blessing of God. And his pain increased his desperation for God, as it should for us as well. Often we unfortunately miss the lesson that God is trying to teach us and just cry out for this instant relief.

[25:27] And relief is good and God often grants it. Maybe that's why we're so certain that disability is a problem because we just automatically want relief and perfection. But God is the goal, not relief. Jacob's limp would stay with him the rest of his life. It would be a reminder of God's blessing. And yes, it's true that Jacob would forever be crippled, but he would also forever be blessed. When we realize that we all have limitations like Jacob, and no, I'm not saying we all have disabilities like was in the top ten list. We all do have limitations though.

[26:13] We need to rely on God's strength and that's when we become stronger than we've ever been. We live in a culture that idolizes personal strength, whether it's money or power or physical wellness. It's the theme of our songs in pop culture. It's the goal of our politics. It's the ambition of our lives. And not just in general culture, but even in the church, we're prone to promote the warriors and the leaders and the rich and the famous and the influencers and the strong.

[26:52] But think about the Bible. Think about who's promoted in the Bible. The youngest son, Joseph, who was sold as a slave by his brothers. It's the peasants, the shepherds that the angels came to at Jesus' birth. They were the lowliest members of society. It's the women, the outcasts. It's the poor fishermen and carpenters. Sorry, I...

[27:20] Anyhow. The small and the weak who are blessed by God. So in the Bible, we learn that glory comes after crucifixion. That weakness is the way to strength. Why would God bless people like Jacob? The answer kind of escapes us for a while until we get to the New Testament and God shows up again out of nowhere as a human.

[27:48] In the darkness with Jacob, God wrestled and pretended to be weak so that God could ultimately bless Jacob. In the darkness of this world, God actually became weak so that he could bless each and every one of us. Tim Keller once said, Jacob held on at the risk of his own life to get the blessing for himself. But Jesus held on at the cost of his own life. To give us the blessing.

[28:21] Maybe you're like Jacob and you find yourself alone and afraid in the darkness of night. With this fearful and uncertain future in front of you. Maybe you've spent your whole life searching and grasping for a blessing only to be left confused and empty and aching in your heart.

[28:43] Maybe you're doing all you can to deny or minimize your pain when that's the very place God wants you to enter so that you can meet him. Maybe you think that God blesses the strong and not the weak. But this passage is the opposite of that. This is the rebuttal to that way of thinking. It shows us plain and simply that God often helps us to become weak in order to bless us. How do you define God's blessing? Is it physical soundness? Is it material provision? Or is it a growing closeness and affection for God?

[29:30] One day we're all going to come before God on bended knee and see him face to face. And on that day the blessing of God for his people will be complete. We've been talking a lot about disability and challenging the idea that disability needs to be healed. What if the vision for completeness is God's blessing over us? We will cling to him and he will cling to us. And there will be no more fearful, lonely, and dark nights. And that is restoration. Let's pray.

[30:13] God, we thank you that whatever your blessing looks like, you offer us complete and total restoration. God, would you help us to come before you in our strength and in our weakness and receive your blessing over us. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.