How to Struggle With God and Win

22nd Sunday after Pentecost, 10/24/10
Genesis 32:22-30


How to Struggle With God and Win


That night was the defining moment in my life. As I stood there all alone, my sins of the past came back to haunt me and my fears about the immediate future filled me with anguish. Tomorrow I was either going to live or die and for the first time in my life I realized I had no control over it. There wasn’t a single thing I could do about it. I was helpless.

To understand my situation that night, you have to know my past—all of my past. You’ll recall I was the younger of twin boys. And my brother Esau and I didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything, even before we were born. Like the Bible says, we jostled with each other in the womb of our mother so much that she prayed to the Lord about it. He informed her what was happening and he foretold that the older twin would serve the younger, meaning Esau would serve me.

And, indeed, Esau was born first but not by much. In fact, I was holding onto his heel with my tiny hand and seconds later I came into this world. My parents, Isaac and Rebekah, named my brother Esau perhaps because he already had a good head of hair. They named me Jacob and not by accident. You see, my name means “heel-grabber.” In my culture a heel-grabber was someone who tripped people up by what he said and did. It was another term for a deceiver.

And it didn’t take long for me to live up to my name. Do you recall the stories? To me it seemed completely unfair that my brother should receive the birthright from my father as the firstborn when he was only that by a couple seconds. That birthright guaranteed him the lion’s share of my father’s inheritance, no small sum even in those days. So I devised a plan to get it from him. One day he came home from one of his hunting trips famished. Being more of a home-boy than my brother, I had learned to cook. And so I offered to make him my award-winning lentil stew recipe and some freshly baked bread if he would give me his birthright. In fact, I made him take an oath. And right then and there he sold it to me—most of my father’s possessions for the price of a pot of stew.

But there was more. Recall that the Lord had promised to send a Savior through the family of my father Isaac. It was up to my father to give one of us that blessing. The Lord had told my father that the blessing should come to me, not Esau, but my father favored Esau while my mother favored me. So again, I hatched a plan of deception, this time for my father. When I found out that he was ready to give his blessing to Esau, I disguised myself as my brother and offered my father the meal that he had told Esau to bring him. Since his eyesight was so poor, he couldn’t tell that I wasn’t Esau. When he asked, I lied and said I was. And then he blessed me. No sooner had he done it than my brother arrived with a meal to receive the blessing. My father realized he had been deceived, but there was nothing he could do. My brother was so angry that he was determined to kill me.

That night I left. It was the last time I saw my brother or my parents. You’ll recall my first night’s sleep as I fled for my life and my dream of the ladder reaching to heaven with angels coming down to me and going back up. That night God promised that I would one day return. That was 20 years ago. And during those 20 years I learned some valuable lessons about myself and about life in general.

I fled to the home of my uncle Laban and I experienced what it was like to be deceived. I worked 7 years for him in exchange for the hand of his daughter Rachel in marriage but on my wedding night he switched Rachel for his other daughter, Leah. So I had to work another 7 years for Rachel.

When those 14 years were over, I worked another 6 years for Laban in exchange for some of the animals in his flocks and herds, but Laban changed the agreement 10 times over those 6 years and each time my wages got cut. But what was I supposed to do? I had met my match. Laban was better at the game of deception than I was.

And when I had just about had it, the Lord said to me, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives and I will be with you” (Gen. 31:3). I had no idea what would happen when I returned, but the Lord told me to go and he said he would be with me, just as he had promised on that first night when I had fled from home. I was beginning to realize that the Lord had been with me all this time and it was because of his blessed presence that things had gone well for me as I lived with my uncle Laban. In spite of the way Laban had deceived me, the Lord still turned it into a blessing for me and my family.

So, with the promise of his presence, I gathered my family and my flocks and headed south for home. I knew this was what the Lord wanted me to do, but I also knew who’d be waiting for me when I got there. Not just my father and mother, but my brother, Esau, as well. I hadn’t seen or heard from him for 20 years. I had no idea if he still hated me enough to kill me or not.

But in 24 hours I was about to find out. So I formed a plan. I decided to take several hundred of my animals and divided them into several groups. I put them in the care of some of my servants and sent them ahead of me and my family. I told them to keep some distance between each group. They were to be a gift to my brother Esau. Wave after wave of gifts would be presented to him the next day. Perhaps that would soften his attitude toward me and he would spare the lives of my wives and children as well as my life.

But I knew that was no guarantee. My plan to offer Esau gifts of flocks and herds might fail me, but there was one thing that could never fail me—the promises of the Lord.

And so I decided to go off by myself and spend the night in prayer, holding my God to his promises to me. My God had promised to go with me and I held him to that promise. I called on him to go with me that next day as I faced Esau.

And then the most mysterious thing happened. I was deep in prayer to the Lord when all of the sudden a man jumped out of the pitch black darkness of night and pounced on me. We began wrestling and like the Bible tells you, it lasted all night. The guy just wouldn’t give up. At first I had no idea who this man was or why he was wrestling with me.

But then it became clear. With a mere touch of the hand he dislocated my hip. It dawned on me that this must be the Lord himself. I was wrestling with God, the almighty God! If he had wanted to overpower me, he could have done so in the blink of an eye. He could have reduced me to ashes with the snap of his fingers. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he let me wrestle with him and make a match of it with him. But my dislocated hip left my lower body powerless to wrestle any further, so I pounced on him like a bear and held him to the ground.

When he said, “Let me go for it is daybreak,” I replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” He had promised to be with me and I wanted him to bless me with his presence as I faced the most critical day of my life so far.

So he asked me my name. Of course he knew what it was, he just wanted me to hear myself say it. “It’s Jacob.” I recalled that my name meant heel-grabber” or “deceiver.”

And the Lord said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” And then he blessed me.

And with the assurance of God’s blessing and presence, I went forward the next day to meet my brother Esau. If you’ve read my story, you know it couldn’t have turned out any better. Esau received me with a hug and a kiss. And I realized that none of this was my doing; it was all the Lord’s.

I understand that your worship focus today is persistence in prayer. While that aptly described me on that night before I met my brother, that certainly didn’t describe me in the first few decades of my life. I relied on my own schemes to get what I wanted, not on the Lord. How about you? One way of determining that is by your attitude towards prayer. Is prayer a last resort for you, or is it your first option? And perhaps you’re thinking, “Well, I tried prayer and it didn’t work out the way I wanted.”

So let me share with you how to struggle with God and win. First, it starts with a proper self-assessment. A proper prayer attitude realizes that we have no right to demand any good thing from our God, nor the expectation that he deal fairly with us. Every one of us has trashed his holy law and violated his holy will. For that we deserve punishment, not blessing. But our gracious God decided to punish our Savior for our sins instead of us. He graciously forgives us. Through the good news of a Savior in his word and in our baptisms he has made us his own children and has given us the privilege of prayer. Your relationship with the holy God is based on faith in Christ. And so is your prayer life. Struggling with God and winning is based on your trust in the promises of God. As I struggled with him in prayer I held him to his promise to go with me. I knew that with him at my side I could face my brother.

You have that same promise from the Lord. Since you are his dear child he has promised to be with you forever. And with the Lord at your side, you can face whatever comes your way—bust or boon, sickness or health, sorrow or happiness. Struggle with God in prayer and win, confident that he will bless you as he sees best. Amen.

Give Glory to God!

21st Sunday after Pentecost, 10/17/10
Luke 17:11-19


Give Glory to God!
I. For his boundless mercy
II. With thankful living


Some weeks ago I heard a peculiar statement. At least it was peculiar to me. I heard one pet lover say to another pet lover who was holding a small dog in her lap, “Let me love on her.” At first I had no idea what the speaker meant. But after a few seconds it became clear to me. She wanted to pet the dog. She was asking the dog’s owner if she could show her affection for the dog. “Let me love on her” was her way of asking to hold and pet it.

I’m sure you’ve run into similar situations. Someone uses an expression that you’ve never heard before and at first you have no idea what they mean. In some cases, you never really understand what they mean. And you either ask them to clarify it or you shake your head in agreement as if you understand when you really don’t.

Now what does all that have to do with the event before us this morning? After all, the account of Jesus healing the ten lepers is one of the most familiar stories in the New Testament. It’s the gospel for our Thanksgiving worship every year. We’ve read and heard the story countless times. We know and understand it, some of us very well. It’s a story about 1 leper being thankful and 9 who weren’t—at least not enough to express it.

But did you notice what Jesus said to the one thankful leper? He didn’t say, “Was no one found to return and give thanks to God.” He said, “Was no one found to return and give praise to God.” In fact, the root meaning of the word in Greek is glory, not praise. “Was no one found to return and give glory to God?”

Giving glory to God is one of those phrases we hear, but we’re not really sure what it means. We envision seeing the glory of God. At the birth of Christ the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds. Jesus revealed his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. We view glory as something we see, but how do we give it as Jesus asked for it here in our text?

To answer that, let’s take his question and make it an encouragement for our lives. After all, our worship focus this morning is living for our faithful God. One way of doing that is to give glory to God. Give glory to God. Let’s see what that means as we consider this familiar event in the life of Jesus.

Part I.

Most of us have felt it. It’s that sinking feeling in the bottom of your stomach. You look in the rear-view mirror of the vehicle you’re driving and you see the lights of the law enforcement officer’s vehicle closing in on you. You’ve been busted for speeding. You pull over to the side of the road and stop. After what seems like an eternity the officer stands at your window and asks to see your driver’s license. He then asks, “Do you know how fast you were going?” You reply, “Yes, officer.” He asks, “What’s your hurry?” You reply, “I’m late for a meeting.” He replies, “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, but slow down.” And you respond, “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

Now what’s your reaction to what that officer has just done? Maybe you’re deeply thankful. After all, you admitted you were speeding. You deserved to get a ticket. But he didn’t give you one. In a way, he had mercy on you. You didn’t get what you deserve.

On the other hand, you might be thinking to yourself, “You know, I wasn’t going that much over the speed limit. Why doesn’t he spend his time pulling over drug dealers. After all, I have a rather clean driving record. Why is he picking on me?” There’s no gratitude in such a heart for the law officer’s mercy toward you.

Jesus had an opportunity to show his mercy. The lepers saw Jesus coming towards them and they cried out at a distance, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.” Again, the root meaning of the Greek word here is not pity, but mercy or compassion. That word says much about their frame of mind. First, the term leprosy in the Bible covered a variety of unwanted, highly contagious and often terrible skin conditions. Many of these varieties were incurable.

That’s one of the reasons that lepers were forced to live away from everyone else. They weren’t allowed to come into contact with healthy people. They resorted to living together to offer whatever support they could to each other. Misery loves company.

They also lived separated from everyone else because the Old Testament Jewish laws stipulated that their leprosy made them ceremonially unclean. They couldn’t worship like the rest of their fellow Jews. They couldn’t celebrate any Jewish festivals. Physically and spiritually they were outcasts.

And they beg Jesus for mercy, for his compassion. They didn’t complain that they didn’t deserve this lot in life. They make no statement about how unfair it all was. They ask Jesus to view their pitiful state and to use his almighty power to heal them. Obviously they had heard about his healing power. They call on him to use that power in an act of mercy towards them.

And Jesus acted. He told them to go and show themselves to the priests and as they went they were healed. He did so in spite of the fact that he knew their gratitude would be less than perfect, because that’s always the way it is with sinners. In this case, their lack of thanks was deplorable. And yet he was merciful.

Give glory to God. Give glory to him for his boundless mercy.

A few minutes ago we talked about your reaction to not receiving a deserved speeding ticket. For most of us, that may be a once in a lifetime event. But actually, it happens daily. Countless times. Countless times every day our God has the chance to write us up. We get into a foul mood. We speak an unkind word. Our thoughts wander into subjects we know are sinful. And when we’re not lulled into laziness, we’re wondering how much happier we’d be if we just had more things. I could go on and on with my sins and yours. Each of them is an opportunity for God to write us up with a one-way ticket to hell. But he doesn’t. That’s mercy. He has taken notice of our pitiful state and he did something about it. He offered us his Son, not only to live for us, but also to die for us. That’s mercy, God’s mercy. As we ponder, appreciate, love and adore him for that mercy, we give glory to God.

Part II.

Few things are more disheartening in life than ingratitude. Would you agree? You expend great effort to make an event special for someone else, but the recipient barely recognizes your effort. There’s little expression in their face and what you did for them barely rates a spoken “thank you” and that only after you dragged it out of them. And your disappointment makes you speechless and then angry. Their ingratitude is disheartening, to say the least.

Or you purchase a toy that your child has been begging for and you watch their face light up with joy as you present it to them. But not 10 minutes later, the toy is on the floor and they’re begging for something else. Their ingratitude is disheartening.

Jesus sent 10 lepers on their way to present themselves to the priests. You see, it was up to the priests to declare them free from leprosy. As they made their way toward the nearest priests, the lepers experienced the almighty healing of Jesus. Imagine Jesus waiting there on the road, waiting for them to return to him and offer him at least a sentence or two of thanks. But he waited in vain for nine of them. Imagine that! After suffering physically and emotionally for years, suddenly they were healed but it doesn’t move them to any expression of thanks. And it doesn’t go unnoticed. Jesus said, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” He’s not pleased at all. These nine men who were most likely his fellow Jews didn’t bother to thank him.

But he is pleased with one. Our text says, “One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.” Jesus later told him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Jesus accepted his thanks as a heartfelt expression of his gratitude. And the fact that it came from a foreigner pleases him even more. He came to seek and to save all people, even this Samaritan. He calls attention to this Samaritan’s faith. The power of God had worked that faith in him, even though he was not one of God’s chosen people. The heavenly Father’s plan to save all sinners was unfolding before Jesus’ eyes. How that must have pleased our Lord! Even Gentiles would live in thanks for what Jesus had done for them!

This man gave glory to God with his thankful living.

Jesus himself has said that faith in him will bear fruit in our lives. One of the fruits of faith is thankful living. As children of God we live our lives in thanks for what Jesus has done for us. The question is, “How well does that describe us?” It’s likely we get so caught up in just getting through what has to be done each day of our lives that we hardly give thanks a thought. A little more than a month from now we’ll spend a holiday trying to be thankful all day, but we’ll be lucky to be thankful half the day. But Jesus would have us live in thankfulness to him every day, all day. We don’t come close to that, do we? And when we don’t, we rob God of his glory. Instead, give it to him. Give him the glory. And that begins with a realization that we don’t deserve to live another minute here, let alone an eternity with him in heaven. And yet your God loved you so much that he won forgiveness and eternal life for you. It cost him the life of his only Son. As we ponder that greatest rescue ever, we’ll begin to live in thankfulness to our God. That means we’re not living for ourselves. We’re not living in self-pity. Instead, we’re recalling what our God has done for us and all his blessings to us. And when we do that, we’re giving God the glory.

You see, understanding that statement isn’t so difficult when you break it down to what we are by nature and what our God has graciously done for us. We’re his dear children by faith in him. Give him the glory! Amen.