Sermon – Wrestling with God
Genesis 32:22–31
Sermon Preached by The Rev’d Tracey Gracey on Sunday 2 August, 2026
Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night because you were ruminating on something difficult or daunting?
An awkward confrontation.
A challenging conversation.
A medical appointment.
An interview.
A family gathering.
If you are like me, you keep rehearsing what you might say or do, trying to prepare yourself for every possible outcome.
That is exactly what Jacob has been doing as he prepares to meet Esau.
This is the brother he cheated.
The brother he fled from.
The brother he hasn’t seen for twenty years.
And Jacob is terrified.
But what Jacob doesn’t yet realise is that the most important encounter of his life will not be with Esau.
It will happen during the night when he is alone in the wilderness.
To understand why this moment matters so much, we need to remember something of Jacob’s story.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been following Jacob’s journey through Genesis.
From the very beginning, Jacob spent much of his life trying to secure God’s blessing on his own terms.
He grasped Esau’s heel at birth.
He persuaded Esau to give up his birthright.
He deceived his father Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing.
Then he fled for his life.
For the next twenty years, Jacob discovered what it felt like to be deceived. Laban tricked him into marrying Leah before Rachel, which meant Jacob had to work another seven years to marry Rachel. He had children, became wealthy and eventually God called him to return home.
But coming home also meant coming back to the unfinished business of his past.
So, Jacob did what many of us would have done.
He prepared. He planned.
He thought through every possible outcome.
He did everything within his power to make his meeting with Esau go well.
There is wisdom in preparing.
But there are some things no amount of preparation can control.
Eventually Jacob reaches that point.
After all the planning, the organising and after all the worrying,
the writer tells us that “Jacob was left alone.”
And it is here that Jacob begins a different kind of preparation, one that will shape the person he will become and prepare him for what lies ahead.
The story tells us that Jacob wrestled with a man until daybreak.
We are not told who this mysterious man is.
Rather, we are invited to notice how Jacob is changed through this confrontation.
During the encounter, Jacob isn’t lectured about his past.
He isn’t confronted with a list of the mistakes he made.
He isn’t condemned.
Instead, through the struggle itself, he is changed.
The first change occurs when the mysterious man asks,
“What is your name?”
Jacob answers, “I am Jacob.”
In the Old Testament, names often carried deep significance.
From birth, Jacob had lived up to the meaning of his name, which meant heel-grabber, the one who grasped, strove and sought to get ahead.
In speaking his name, Jacob acknowledges the life he has lived.
He no longer hides from the truth about himself.
The second change comes when Jacob is given a new name.
“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.”
Jacob’s past is not erased.
But neither does his past define his future.
He is given a new identity and purpose.
His story will no longer be shaped by who he has been.
It will be shaped by who God is calling him to become.
For the first time in his life, Jacob is no longer trying to take the blessing for himself.
He receives it as a gift.
Only then does Jacob begin to understand what has taken place.
He names the place Peniel, saying, “I have seen God face to face.”
Looking back on the night, Jacob realises that the blessing did not come through deception, scheming or grasping. It came through an encounter with God.
The third and final change is the most surprising.
Jacob leaves this encounter with a limp.
The blessing does not remove the wound.
Instead, the limp becomes part of the blessing.
From that day on, every step Jacob takes reminds him that he no longer walks by his own strength alone.
When daybreak comes, Esau is still waiting.
The difficult conversation still needs to happen.
The uncertainty has not disappeared.
On the surface, nothing has changed.
But Jacob has.
This is the heart of the story.
We spend so much of our lives asking God to change the situations we fear.
Sometimes God does.
But often, God’s deepest work is preparing us for the things that we cannot change.
Many of us know what it is like to lie awake wondering what tomorrow will bring.
We cannot control every conversation, every diagnosis or every decision.
But we can trust that God is able to meet us, even in the wrestling.
Not always by taking away the struggle.
But by preparing us to face it.
We do not always know what tomorrow will bring.
But we can trust the God who prepares us for whatever tomorrow holds.
Amen.