Genesis 32
AI-GENERATED SUMMARY
This sermon expounds upon the narrative of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32, presenting Jacob as a “struggler” who becomes a “limping victor” through his encounter with the Lord1,2. Pastor Tuuri argues that Christians are called to be wrestlers who engage with God in prayer—not passively accepting difficulties, but actively seeking covenant blessings and the manifestation of God’s kingdom3,4. The message posits that God, like a father wrestling his son, uses these struggles not to destroy us but to strengthen and bless us, marking us (like Jacob’s hip) as His elect who “limp into the sunrise” of victory rather than the sunset of defeat1,2. Consequently, the congregation is exhorted to embrace their struggles as opportunities to wrestle with God for the covenant, utilizing prayer as a means to secure blessings rather than giving up3,5.
COMMUNION HOMILY
Please be seated. Wanted to mention briefly this last verse in the text. We read, “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.” So this was not a law, but this was a practice where they remembered Jacob’s encounter with God, which was to remember their own encounter with God as well.
God speaks to Jacob. He speaks to us and to Israel. This memorial, as it were, was a sign of their election, their call by God to be limping victors by God’s grace and through God’s covenant as they attain to his blessings. So they had this absence of eating something. It’s kind of interesting because of course they weren’t eating bodies. They were eating animals. And yet they understood this connection between eating and, you know, who we are in God and what men, what animals represent, which is men.
It’s interesting too that this is kind of like a prologue to Passover. And they come across and now they have a food restriction placed upon them by their own choice. And then later, of course, in the Exodus they’ll come out of Egypt—they’ll go to Mount Sinai and receive various laws, and some of these laws were these dietary laws where they were restricted now from eating all kinds of things. So the covenant has this relationship to eating. And it’s very significant, I think, that the transition from the Old Testament, anticipatory of the coming of Jesus, and then his coming—that transition is pictured by moving from a prohibition of eating to a command to eat, through a calling by God to come and dine on the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for us.
It shows us that this path was to lead to tremendous blessing when the greater Jacob came. And now the restriction from eating becomes instead—the sign of election is our eating at this table with him.
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat. This is my body.”
Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the bread that’s set before us. We thank you for our identification and union with the Lord Jesus Christ and that this is pictured in our eating of this bread. We thank you for the spiritual grace from on high that attends this obedience on our part to joyfully come to this table week by week, be reminded of our election, our calling to seek after your blessing, and to be those who, while limping, are victorious.
Bless us now as we eat this bread. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.
Please come forward and receive the elements from the hands of the officers.
Q&A SESSION
Q1
Questioner: Thank you for those thoughts. I see victory through the struggles we have—obstacles at work, difficulties, outright malice, collusion of people against you. In these struggles, we often want to cry out to God: “Why us? Why me? Why does this have to happen? Why aren’t you blessing me?” But I think the victory for the church is very sure if we remember one thing—pray for your enemies. It’s a simple thing, but I think God brings struggles with people, and we may never see them again. We can reflect back and have angry thoughts, but maybe someday God will visit them. Don’t you think that would be wonderful? But I think what God wants us to do is embrace the calling into the priesthood, and that is to pray for our enemies. I think the church will see more victory as we all do that.
Pastor Tuuri: Well, you know, I know there are times when judgment is going to come. You’ve got to leave it in God’s hands. But of course, we’re told specifically to pray for judgment, right? Part of praying for our enemies is praying for judgment upon them to their repentance. There are two great ditches right now that we’re tempted to fall into. One ditch is sinful anger, our own lust, and all that sort of stuff. The other ditch is being nicer than Jesus and not recognizing the antithesis that God has built into this world—not seeking to transform men or recognize that men are doing evil things.
So I agree with you, but there are two ditches in that road. My concern is that we seem to generally, as a Christian culture, fail to recognize that part of those prayers are to pray that God’s judgment be upon them so that they might come to repentance.
Questioner: I guess what I’m saying is that we’re just leaving it in his hands. Leave all that and say, “Okay, God, leave it in his hands.”
Pastor Tuuri: Well, again, the judgment comes from him, right? In the sense that we don’t take it into our own hands—absolutely. But you could misinterpret that to think that we leave it in his hands by just being passive. What the text calls us to is a very activist faith.
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Q2
Chris W.: This is Chris in the back. I don’t know that there’s a magic formula, but I’m curious as to your thoughts on ways for us to know the difference between when we’re wrestling with God in a healthy way to get the blessing versus just being stubborn and stupid.
Pastor Tuuri: Well, yeah, I think the big corrective is that wrestling for the covenant—the covenant blessings, not for the results of things that might accrue to covenant blessings but really are not part of covenant blessings directly. So number one, what you’re wrestling for and praying toward is God’s word. Jacob’s wrestling is informed by his word. God told him to go back there and apparently to encounter Esau, so he needs to wrestle with that.
I think number one is remembering that blessings are not abstracted away from the covenant. The covenant is what Jacob is seeking more than anything else in his life. Number two, in terms of our text, Jacob’s prayer is an excellent one to regularly review with the component elements that are in it as a way to avoid some of that.
But yeah, you can be boneheaded and think that you’re actually being tenacious when in fact you’re in opposition to what God is doing, and that’s more your concern, right?
Questioner: Well, one other thing I’d say about that—and I think this is really important—is the counsel of your godly friends. It’s real easy to become self-deceived about this stuff and keep banging away at a door that God is closing. God wants us to be like the widow who keeps asking, but sometimes the door is closed and it’s going to stay closed. One of the ways I think you can get your way through that is by seeking counsel from godly friends you have, which means you’ve got to have some godly people around you.
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Q3
Kingman (Lou): Pastor Tuuri, this is Kingman. I just want to say that this is a day of great blessing in my life in that you are back here. I haven’t heard you preach in person for so long, and it’s a great blessing to me and I’m sure to everybody else.
Pastor Tuuri: Well, thank you so much, Lou. That’s all I need to hear. Yeah, well, we’ve gone through it, haven’t we? You had a much worse situation than I did, but boy, we’ve both gone through this. And you know, it’s hard if you haven’t gone through a recuperation of months and months—whether from a car accident or in my case from a series of these wounds. I just don’t think we’re the same people by the end of that. We’re not supposed to be. We’re changed in some pretty important, significant ways that I don’t understand, but you know what I mean, Lou?
Lou: Yes. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Pastor Tuuri: Well, it’s wonderful hearing your voice here, too. Thank you.
Dennis Tuuri 
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