Jacob’s Encounter With God

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Speaker: Richard Goswiller
Scripture: Genesis 32:22-32
October 19, 2025

Genesis 32:22-32: The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the 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. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 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 socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

Sermon Outline

1. The background to this story

• A fleeing trickster

• A returning patriarch

• A fearful wrestler

2. The Lord prepares Jacob

• Protective division

• Providential seclusion

3. The Lord wrestles Jacob

• Who is this man?

• What is the meaning of this?

4. The Lord blesses Jacob

• Why the name change?

• Why the crippling?

5. How should we seek to apply this?

• The way of divine blessing

• The duration of divine blessing

Hosea 12:3-5: In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He me God at Bethel, and there, God spoke with us — the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial name.

“Jacob obtains what he had sought from this encounter, as he sees God face to face and receives God’s blessing. Yet in this instance meeting with God leads not to peace and healing for Jacob but rather to an enduring, painful crippling of his hip. Jacob will forever bear in his body the marks of this excruciating yet grace-filled encounter, in which to survive and to cling to the Lord was to triumph.”
— Iain Duguid, Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace (2002)

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