Some Blessings Come by Way of the Limp

Some blessings only come by way of limbs. Or maybe another way to put it would be, some scars don't tell the story of your past, but they open up the opportunity for a new future. Because the confounding reality we'll be confronted with today is that the hand that wounded Jacob is the same hand that heals him, restores him, and sends him. In short, it's the hand that blesses him. [00:49:23] (26 seconds)  #BlessingsByLimbs

So one night, God will come to him in the dark and he will leave him with a limp that he would carry to his grave, and yet they call it a blessing. How can loss be gain? So we're going to walk through this text in four movements. We're going to the break, the hold, the new name, and the commissioning. And maybe a line that you can hang on this morning as you think about structure of our message this morning is something like this. Some blessings only come by way of limbs. [00:48:45] (38 seconds)  #LimpIsABlessing

I want you to think with me for a minute because there's a question I think everybody in this room and everybody generally asks themselves, whether it's the person who doubts in the back row, came here for the coffee, I don't know who comes to church for the coffee, or the saint in the third row who's been here thirty years, the exhausted parent who got dressed this morning by a miracle, or the successful executive who's got life handled. Here's the question I think we all ask. What if the thing you keep praying for God to remove from your life is the thing that God ultimately use in your life? [00:45:06] (46 seconds)  #PrayedForPurpose

God's right hand teaches us to trust him, nothing else. That more power is given than opposed. God's right hand blesses, it renames, it sends. God wrestles with us not to harm us, but to remake us, to renew us. And that's often how he refines his servants. He touches them at the seat of their reliance. He struck Jacob's hip. In weakness, their grasping becomes a clinging. Jacob says, I will not let you go. [01:20:57] (33 seconds)  #TrustGodsRightHand

Jacob went from a given name to a given name. One he had earned, the other he had not. Supplanter, heel grabber, deceiver, that was his identity by achievement. That was him boasting in his wiring and gifting. A blessing he had stolen by disguise, he now openly receives untarnished on his own. Now he is Israel, strives with God or fights God, a name given to him not earned. Why? Because he is not winning the match. He was being toyed with by the Lord. This is grace. God giving us what we cannot earn. [01:27:54] (48 seconds)  #GraceNotEarned

What might you be in the midst of? Let me put it this way, what's your name? To his blind father, he lied. He said, I am Esau. He disguised himself his whole life. He had pretended to be what he was not. He was the ultimate dealer. And in this encounter with God, he's willing to be honest to the man he doesn't know. This is a confession. Now, he knows himself by Jacob. What about you? [01:27:19] (33 seconds)  #KnowYourTrueName

He's touched the socket of his hip. I want you to slow down that word because the Hebrew is doing something that English smooths over. Why? I don't know. But he touched, a word that means it's not a haymaker to touch. And the man who out wrestled every opponent that life had ever sent him is undone in this moment by a finger, and the man folds. It's enough to cripple, but not enough to destroy. God reaches out with one finger and he falls. [01:12:49] (30 seconds)  #UndoneByAFinger

Jacob is undone by a single finger. This word or he touched him, and the CSB is rendered struck, a word for a violent blow or the lightest brush of a finger. Isn't that interesting? We don't get a play by play. All we're told is this one final detail, that when the man saw that he could not prevail against Jacob, what kind man is that? Jacob's not exactly the picture of strength. He's not a Greek Adonis. [01:12:17] (32 seconds)  #SmallTouchBigChange