Rabbi Schneider - Paul, Jacob, and YOU: Wrestling With God

Did you know that there are 613 laws in the Torah? And this revelation answers questions that we sometimes don’t have answers for if we just read the New Testament. Let me ask you a question. Is God willing to hurt us because he has an objective in mind that he can’t accomplish without bringing us through some pain? Well, we’re going to answer that question today by looking at one of the laws in the Torah. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but Baruch Hashem, the word of God abides forever.

Now you’re going to have to stay with me. I’m going to give it to you piece by piece. First I’m just going to state the law. The law is this. It’s called the prohibition against eating the thigh muscle of any animal. Now, I know that for some of you, you’re wondering, what the heck is going on? What’s going on here? But again, there are 613 laws from the Torah that the rabbis have brought forth. And one of these laws is that we can’t eat the thigh muscle of any animal. Where does that come from? It comes from the scripture in the book of Bereshit, the book of Genesis, chapter 32, verse 32. I’m going to read the scripture that it comes from, then I’m going to give the context so you can understand the concept of all this.

Here we go. «Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew, » that’s a connective tissue «of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he, » this is actually the mysterious angel or God incarnate that touched Jacob in a God encounter that Jacob had, «because he or the angel or God touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip». So let’s put it in context here. Many of us have heard the Hebrew title Bethel. It means house of God. Bethel. Beth (house) El (God). Where does the word «Bethel» come from, the title Bethel? It comes from the time in the book of Genesis when Jacob was running for his life from Esau. Many of you know the story of Jacob and Esau. They were twin brothers. Esau was the eldest.

Esau, biblically, was entitled to the birthright, to the father’s blessing of the firstborn son. But Jacob wanted the birthright. And Jacob’s mother favored Jacob, and Jacob’s mother wanted Jacob to have the birthright. So one day, when Esau was out hunting, Jacob took a hairy animal skin and put it on his forearm, and he went to his dad Isaac, who was blind at the time, and he disguised himself as Esau. And Isaac, the father, said, «Well, you don’t sound like Esau». And Jacob said, «No, I’m Esau». Isaac, still being skeptical, called Jacob over and said, let me touch your arm. Because Isaac knew that Esau’s arm was hairy while Jacob’s was smooth. So Jacob, with the hair connected to his forearm, put his arm so that Isaac could feel it. Isaac felt the hair. And then Isaac, being deceived by Jacob, went forth and blessed Jacob with the blessing of the firstborn.

Well, when Esau got back from hunting and discovered that Jacob had stolen his birthright, he was furious, and he was intent on killing Jacob. So Jacob’s mother told Jacob to flee. Jacob left in terror, fearing for his life. And here he was now, all alone in the wilderness. He had left everybody he knew. He had left his family, everyone he knew from where he had grown up because he’s fleeing and he’s alone. And he goes to sleep alone in the wilderness, and he finds a rock that he uses as a pillow, and he falls asleep with that rock under his head, and he has a vision of a ladder going up to the heavens from the rock where his head is laid. And he sees these angels ascending and descending upon the ladder.

Yeshua, Jesus referred to it in the Gospels. And then the Lord told Jacob that He was going to bless him. And He promised Jacob that he was going to inherit the land, and Jacob encountered the Lord there. And when Jacob woke up, he said, Surely God is in this place. And he titled that place Bethel, the house of God. Well, 20 years has gone by since that encounter, as we come to our Scripture reading today in Genesis 32. Twenty years has gone by. Jacob has been alone, but he’s not fully alone, because he gets a new family, remember? He begins to work for Laban. He marries Leah and Rachel. But finally, after 20 years, the Lord speaks to him again. So I’m reading now from the book of Genesis chapter 31, verse 13. God’s coming back to Jacob 20 years later and says this, «I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth».

So God’s saying, I want you to go back home now. I want you to meet Esau. We’re picking up now, and I’m going to the 32nd chapter, and I’ll pick up in the 9th verse here. «O God of my father, » Jacob is speaking, «Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord. who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your relatives, I will prosper you.'» We just quoted that verse where the Lord told him to return from the previous chapter. So Jacob is now speaking back and saying, «Lord, you’re saying to me, 'Return'». And he says, «I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I become two companies».

Jacob kept on multiplying, two wives, many flocks, many herds, very, very wealthy. And then Jacob prays, «Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. So he spent the night there. Then he selected from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau». So Jacob decides that he’s going to try to calm Esau’s anger by sending him a gift before Jacob himself meets him face to face.

Let’s continue on now in the 24th verse. «Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak». So Jacob has this encounter where he wrestles with God. The language is very mysterious. When we read through this, the word «he», you’re going to hear me read in the next verse, the «he» here is some type of God incarnate in this experience that Jacob had where Jacob is wrestling with God or some type of angel from the throne of God. And it’s very mysterious because the scripture is going to tell us that Jacob was wrestling with this man, with this angel, and that Jacob was prevailing. How could Jacob wrestle with God and prevail? Well, God was letting him win, but God was doing something in the process. It didn’t feel to Jacob like God was letting him win. Jacob was striving with all his strength.

Let’s continue on. «Then he saw that he had not prevailed against him.». This is the Lord speaking. God saw that He had not prevailed against Jacob. «He, then the Lord, touched the socket of his thigh, so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, » this is the Lord speaking, «now let me go, for the dawn is breaking». God’s kind of letting Jacob, you know, exert his strength. But he, meaning Jacob, said, «I will not let you go unless you bless me. So he said to him, 'What is your name? ' And he said, 'Jacob.' He said, 'Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed». This is what the name «Israel» means, one that is striven with God or one that prevails or God prevails.

So after Jacob wrestles with God and keeps on wrestling and keeps on wrestling and keeps on wrestling and God kind of lets him win a little bit, then God dislocates Jacob’s hip and changes his name to Israel. Notice the next verse. «Then Jacob asked him and said, 'Please tell me your name.' But he said, 'Why is it that you ask my name? ' And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, 'I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.' Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. Therefore, to this day, » here we go, here’s the law, where the law comes from because of this incident. «Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip».

So today, Jewish people still do not eat the sinew of the hip. And we’re asking ourselves as New Testament believers, what is the application of all this for me today? Beloved, there is tremendous application here. I want you to consider this. Jacob’s name was not changed to Israel… Hear me carefully. God did not change Jacob’s name to Israel until after God dislocated Jacob’s hip. And after the Lord dislocated Jacob’s hip, Jacob walked with a limp for the rest of his life. God could not bless Jacob until God first broke Jacob of all self-reliance and pride. And this is the key. God cannot bless us with the fullness of what He wants to give us until we are first humbled and broken of self-reliance and of pride. God’s power, beloved, is manifest in us through our weakness.

There’s a famous Jewish exegesis or commentary called Bereshit Rabbah. Once again, an ancient Jewish exegesis of the book of Genesis. And Bereshit Rabbah offers this insight. The thigh is the seat of pride. The Holy One, blessed be he, said to Jacob, you rely on your thigh, I will strike it. And so God breaks us of self-reliance and pride in order to bless us. And so I began today by asking the question, will God ever hurt us because He’s got a higher purpose in mind? Let me tell you, when God dislocated Jacob’s hip, it cost Jacob something. He had to struggle with a limp, a physical weakness for the rest of his life. God will hurt us at times, not because He wants to hurt us for the sake of delighting in our pain, but because He can’t do in us what he wants to do unless He breaks us, once again, of pride and self-reliance.

In fact, the great apostle Paul that we all admire so much experienced the same thing in his life. Like Jacob, Paul was blessed with tremendous revelation. Jacob encountered God going up and down on the ladder from heaven to earth. Jacob encountered God a second time that we read about here. Likewise, Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Jesus spoke to him. Paul saw the blinding light. Paul received tremendous revelation. But after Paul received the revelation, a messenger of Satan, the Scripture tells us, was sent to Paul to keep Paul from exalting himself because of the tremendous revelation which Paul received.

So Paul receives this tremendous revelation, but what happens next? God dislocates, so to speak, Paul’s hip. It wasn’t exactly a dislocation of his hip. We don’t know what it was. All we know it was a messenger of Satan, and the messenger of Satan was sent by God. There’s another conundrum for New Testament believers that don’t know the Hebrew Bible, but this is exactly what Paul said. Paul said, because of the abundance of revelation that was given to me… So Paul tells us why the messenger of Satan came. Because of the abundance of the revelation that was given to him to keep him, Paul said, from exalting himself, a messenger of Satan was sent to him, which brought torment to Paul. Paul prayed three times, Lord, take this pain away. Take this pain away. Take this torment away.

And after the third time, most of us know the story, the Lord responded to Paul, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. In other words, Paul, as you rely on me, you’re going to get through. And the Lord continued and said to Paul, for my power, Paul, will be perfected in your weakness. This is the same phenomenon, beloved, that we see going on here in the life of Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel. God dislocated his hip so that Jacob would become reliant on the Lord. And you know what? The Lord will do the same thing in your life and my life.

So next time that you encounter a trial, next time that you encounter hardship, recognize that God may be in that trial. God might be in your hardship, even what some of you might be dealing with right now. You’re going through a difficult time. It could be anything. And God might be right in the center of what you’re going through, because like he did with Jacob, and like he did with Paul, he’s breaking you of self-reliance so you’ll become completely dependent upon him. He can’t fully bless you, beloved, until he first humbles you. You see, our challenges become a metaphoric gateway for spiritual transformation. Our challenges become a channel for us to receive divine favor. Our tendency towards pride as human beings must be dealt with. And so the Lord protects us from our pride by bringing us through challenges.

Listen to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 about this very subject. After Paul realized that God was bringing him into challenges, that this messenger of Satan was actually sent from God to keep Paul from exalting himself so that God’s power could be perfected in Paul. Because remember when Paul said, remove this torment, God said, «Paul, my power is going to be perfected in your weakness». Here’s what Paul realized after that about going through challenges and trials, about going through times when his hip was dislocated. And by the way, this law, not to eat the sinew of the hip, reminds us of this. This is why in Israel we don’t eat the sinew of a hip and why we remind ourselves that God perfects His purposes in our life through our trials oftentimes.

So this is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. «…most gladly, therefore, I’ll rather boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong». So this law that we derive from rabbinic Judaism out of the Torah not to eat the sinew of a hip socket reminds us how God uses the trials in life and actually orchestrates the trials and challenges we face in life, oftentimes, to transform them into a channel of blessing, to break us of pride, to break us of self-reliance so we become open to receive his power.

And in closing today, I want to make one more application. The rabbis also see in this story of Jacob the fact that we shouldn’t let physical weaknesses or physical disabilities or physical impairments stop us. Because Jacob continued to wrestle with God even after his hip was dislocated.

So this is a word of encouragement according to the rabbis, that when we’re struggling physically, when we run into some type of physical challenge or something that takes some of our capability away in the natural, we shouldn’t let that stop us, even as Jacob kept on wrestling with God even after his hip was dislocated. And I say that to you, beloved ones, with tenderness, because I know that some are struggling with very difficult situations, and I don’t want to seem insensitive or callous to that. But it is a word of encouragement to keep giving God our best, keep doing our best, even when we’re facing physical challenges, because Jacob continued to wrestle with God after his hip was dislocated, and beloved, he was fully blessed.