BROKEN, BUT BLESSED - REMBRANDT S BRUSH SERIES

Transcription

1 Good morning! It is great to see you today. Now I grew up in California and I loved playing baseball, but I hated breaking in a new mitt. I had a mitt named Medusa and another mitt named Charlene. And whenever you get a new mitt it is tough, you can t just play catch with it while it is brand new because you can t close it. And the ball pops out when it can t be closed. So how then do you break a new mitt in? If you are going to break it in, first of all you need to get some good old fashioned Rawlings Glovolium. You have to apply that oil into the leather to begin to soften it. And then you get a baseball, you put it in the glove, you get some string and you tie the glove together around that ball. Now aren t you glad you came to church today to learn a lesson about how to break a baseball glove in? But it is important though, because you can t just tie the string carelessly; you have to make sure it is closed tightly around the ball. So you wrap it up and at nighttime you put the glove underneath your mattress and you sleep on it. Now I don t know how much having it under your mattress really helps, but that is the way we used to do it. In the morning I would open it up and through that process of applying the oil and tying the ball tightly in the center of the glove, the glove was being broken in. Then you could take that glove out and begin to play catch with it. It becomes fit for the game. But if you really wanted to speed the process up you could stick the glove in the microwave and nuke it. Allow it to kind of go through a softening effect that way. Now why am I telling you this? It is because a baseball mitt is not useful until it is first broken. A new glove is not useful to the athlete until it is broken in. You are not going to go out and play baseball with a brand new mitt. You have to take it through a process of being broken. And it is the same way with our lives. We are not maximally useful to God until our lives are first broken. We have to come to a place where we recognize that brokenness is beautiful, that there is a beauty in brokenness. And if we want to maximize our lives, if we want to be in God s will, we have to be willing to subject ourselves to the process of brokenness. Instead what we often want to do is what could be done to a baseball glove by microwaving it. We want to speed up the process. God, just stick us in the oven and let s get this thing over with. I m ready to serve you. But brokenness doesn t happen overnight. And even in the story you are going to see today a lot preceded this moment that Jacob would have as he wrestled with the angel Page 1 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

2 of the Lord. You see, broken clouds produce rain, broken grain gives us bread, a jockey is not going to attempt to ride a horse that is wild. The horse must first be broken before it is fit for the jockey. And that is true in our lives as well. We need that brokenness. The baby is not ready to come down the birth canal until the water breaks. And Christians will often fight God, they will resist God, they want their own way, and they try to talk God into doing things according to their will. We are going to come to a passage today in Genesis Chapter 32 where we are going to see Jacob encounter the angel of the Lord. He is going to have this encounter where he has to get to the end of himself so that he can discover all that God truly has for him. He will be between a rock and a hard place. But before we do that let me share with you how the morning will work. We are going to walk through Genesis Chapter 32 and verses 22 to 32. Then we are going to look at these verses and see this encounter that Jacob had with this angel. And we are going to see how Jacob comes to the end of himself. But before we do that I want to remind us that we are in a series called Rembrandt s Brush. And for those who missed last week, what we are doing is we are taking a peek at some of the different paintings that the great Dutch painter, Rembrandt, did in the 1600 s. Now Rembrandt painted a lot of Christian paintings. There isn t any evidence that Rembrandt was a Christian, or that he lived for Christ. He grew up in a home where he was familiar with the Scriptures because one of his parents was Catholic and the other was Dutch Reform. Rembrandt was someone who would paint in oil on canvas. He also did lots of etchings. He wasted a lot of his money that he received as a result of his fame because he did not know how to manage his finances. And Rembrandt would paint many pictures of himself, and we can see his aging process by those paintings. He did many self-portraits. Here are two examples. Page 2 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

3 Rembrandt never got over to Italy to spend time with the great artists during the Renaissance, but he became highly acclaimed as the greatest Dutch artist to ever live. And Rembrandt would paint this particular passage we are learning about today and we will look at it after we walk through the verses. So we want to look at Genesis Chapter 32 and understand the context. We know that there are forefathers, right? When I became a Christian I was so unchurched that when they talked about the forefathers - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I spent quite some time looking for the fourth one, until I learned that fore was spelled f-o-r-e not f-o-u-r. God had picked out Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia and he became known as Father Abraham. And Abraham would be the one that Jews, Muslims and Christians all look back to as the founder of their faith. Abraham was called out of southern Mesopotamia to go to a land that God would show him and he was going to be a father that would have children and through those children the nations would be blessed. In fact, we too are a part of that blessing today because Abraham stepped out in faith and followed God. Abraham would have Isaac, and then Isaac would have Jacob and Esau, who were twins. And Jacob from the beginning had issues as the birth is depicted with Jacob grasping the heel of Esau. Jacob was domesticated and he was kind of a mama s boy. Esau was the kind of a guy that is ruddy and outdoorsy. And Jacob sought to achieve the birthright that Esau had. Now we need to understand this particular culture and not try to impose our 21 st century understanding on an ancient day text. We need to understand what is going on in the world at this time where God is meeting the people. So in this particular context the firstborn was privy to the greater blessings and inheritance. And Jacob was never one to know how to be secure in second place. Page 3 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

4 And when we can t be secure in second place we will use all kinds of tactics like manipulation, deceit, shaming others, and being competitive and jealous. Jacob wanted to be first; he wanted to be number one. He had to have that blessing that should go to Esau. He would do whatever he had to do to be first. And that is always a dangerous recipe. If you have ever worked with someone in the corporate world or in the church where they did not know how to embrace their spot, and they become competitive, you know that it can cause damage. Jacob caused the problem that would happen in the home because he would first deceive his brother for the birthright, and then he would even deceive his own father on his deathbed to receive the blessing. He made his father think that he was Esau so that he could receive the blessing of the firstborn. Jacob was a deceiver. He was manipulative. And when we are not secure in our core, we will go to great lengths to try to get what we think we need or deserve in life. And all of us have to learn what it means to have that secure spot. So the situation we are going to read about is where Esau wants his brother dead. Jacob has been on the run for 20 years after leaving home and ripping off his brother s blessing. He had been staying with his Uncle Laban, and he has worked for him for 20 years. And he has begun to reap what he had sowed. He experienced the deception of Laban and he has learned how messed up deceit can be. You see deceit can destroy a home, it can destroy a church, and it can destroy a company. Deceit paints a false picture of things and God desires us to be in the truth. Now Jacob has had enough. He was deceived into marrying a woman he didn t love, and now he has two wives, Leah and Rachel. He has several sons, servants and livestock and he is going to exit away from Uncle Laban. And now he is between a rock and a hard place where Laban is on one side and Esau is on the other and fear and desperation kicks in. And fear and desperation are the perfect ingredients for brokenness, bringing us to the end of ourselves. Jacob sends his wives and his caravans on ahead of him hoping to buy his brother s favor. He is hoping it will all be okay. Now we come to a passage where we will see Jacob is left alone in the middle of the night. Please turn to Genesis verse 22 of Chapter 32 and let s walk through the Scriptures. Page 4 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

5 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. Now the Jabbok connects to the River Jordan. You have the Sea of Galilee that flows into the Jordon River, and the Jabbok connects to the Jordon River. The Jordon River dumps into the Dead Sea and the Dead Sea has no place to release itself and that is why it is dead. I have floated on the Dead Sea three different times and it is just incredible. Notice it says that Jacob took his two wives and his two female servants. I want to stop here for a moment because I want to offer a Biblical interpretative principle that can help us all. Not everything the Bible records does God approve. God doesn t approve of everything that the Bible records. So here Jacob has two wives and God didn t approve of the deceit that Laban did for Jacob to end up with two wives. But God meets us where we are, and He even does that today. He doesn t ask us to clean up our acts first, to live according to the Kingdom principles first, and then He will meet us. No, He meets us in our polygamy, He meets us in slavery, He meets us in our addictions, He meets us in our drunkenness, and He meets us in our deceit and our manipulations. And we encounter grace. He works through us because He loves us and He shows us the way to walk. If we could clean up our act first Jesus would not have had to die on the cross, we might have been able to figure it all out on our own. But we can t. God meets Jacob in a culture like I shared last week with Abraham and Isaac and the culture they lived in. The whole point of the story was not to endorse child sacrifice; the whole point of the story last week was God testing Abraham s faith. And then God stopped Abraham when He saw that he was willing to be obedient. He wanted to show Abraham that He was not like the other gods who supposedly wanted child sacrifices. God doesn t expect people to sacrifice their children on the altar to Him. God meets us where we are by His grace to bring us to where He ultimately wants us to be. Verse 23, He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. Jacob sends his family and his caravan first to go meet Esau. And Jacob was left alone. Maybe you think that makes Jacob sound kind of passive. He sends his family on ahead to meet Esau. But he is sending Esau a bunch of gifts because he knows there is going to be an encounter, and he is trying to prepare the way by overwhelming Esau with blessings that should have been his to begin with, but that Jacob had taken. God works through us in spite of us all the time. It is the story of Scripture. We will always be confused with Scripture and we will be confused with life, how some Page 5 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

6 people just seem to get blessed or to get away with certain things. But God just does that. He has done that in my own life. He uses me in spite of me, and I am so thankful for that. And He will do that in your life as well. Verse 24, And Jacob was left alone. It is time for Jacob to have an encounter that will bring him to the end of his own conniving, his own deceit and manipulation. Jacob couldn t have planned for this encounter. He didn t know this encounter was going to happen. He is probably just freaking out, having a panic attack, while he is all alone and desperate. He can t go back to Laban so he has to go forward and hope that everything is going to be okay when he meets up with Esau. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. Now it says a man. This passage is a bit cryptic. But what is going on here is later Jacob is going to say that he saw God face to face. In Hosea Chapter 12 and verse 4 it says, He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us. When you put all the data together we need to understand that angels are spirits, but they can take on a form. God is spirit but He can take on a form. So the angel of the Lord was Jesus. Anytime you see the definite article the angel of the Lord it is believed to have been a pre-incarnate Christ. Before Jesus existed He existed. He existed as the second person of the Trinity before He took on flesh in the incarnation and existed as a human. He has always been the second person of the Trinity. But one way He would appear is as the angel of the Lord. And it is believed when you take Hosea saying he wrestled with the angel, and then here where it says a man, we believe that it looked like a man like figure. And Jacob realizes when it is all said and done that he saw God as an angel of the Lord. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. So this was a long wrestling match. Have you ever sought God s blessing so much that you were praying and weeping trying to seek Him? One of the things that we have to do in those moments is work our own will out of this situation. Sometimes we can be desperately seeking God, where we go into His presence thinking not thine will be done, but my will be done. And it is because we want something so badly. In those moments we need to ask the question, Can I trust that God is still good even when I say not my will but your will be done? Can we trust that He has a plan? I know in my own life when I am wrestling the most that I am struggling as a Christian trusting God. I have a God trusting problem in those moments. Jacob wrestled Page 6 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

7 with Him until the break of day. Verse 25, When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob. We are going to see in a little bit that this is an encounter with God and that God couldn t prevail against Jacob, so what is going on here? We need to continue reading so we can understand it. It is to help us to understand the brokenness that is about to happen. I believe Jacob started into the night wanting to use God to get what he wanted. And during this encounter wrestling with a man He realizes that Jacob is not going to give up so He goes to the next layer to bring him to brokenness. It is best for us to willingly yield to God s ways because God will break us if need be in order for us to be aligned. Like, it is great if you go and get a dog and expect it be obedient. But some dogs are more obedient than others. The dog that we have now is a train wreck and an absolute disaster. I love the dog but he has terrible manners. It is an English Bulldog and it is so strong willed that I find myself missing my English Bulldog, Esther, because she was obedient. I would walk into my home and Esther would just fall down and roll over on her back in total surrender. My Bulldog, Winston, will have me out in the yard doing laps trying to catch him. Why does one dog become obedient and another one not so much? In this particular situation Jacob doesn t tap out easily. 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. Now wrestling with your hip out of socket would not be very comfortable. So now this is what we might refer to crippling grace as one individual put it. Verse 26, The He said, Let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Jacob was saying he wanted God to bless him the right way. He wanted the blessing that God had for him; he wanted to cooperate with God. And Jacob was not going to let Him go now that he was broken because he wanted God s blessing. And now I want you to notice how cool this Scripture reads. Verse 27, And He said to him, What is your name? and he said, Jacob. Obviously if the Lord is wrestling with Jacob He had taken on the form of a man, right? And we know that God knows Jacob s name. So what is God doing here? It is like when Adam and Eve were in the Garden after they had taken the fruit from the tree of knowledge and they were hiding Page 7 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

8 from God. And it says that God came walking in the cool of the Garden, which is another time God takes on form. Or it could just be anthropomorphic language. Anthropomorphic language is when we use language of God in human terms like saying God stretched forth His hand to heal. It is the way that we can understand God in human form. So God was walking in the cool of the Garden and He says, Where are you? to Adam and Eve, when He knew exactly where they were. God wanted them to reveal themselves. In the same way here God wants Jacob to reveal himself because there is power in a name. In our culture today we name our kids names that don t mean anything, we just like the sound of them. But in the culture of the Bible names meant something. And Jacob s name meant deceiver. And He said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. In other words God wants Jacob to quit trying to live out of his false self and embrace his true self. He needs to become what God created him to be, instead of living like a deceiver, one who grasps, one who takes. And all of us have to be careful because we will be tempted to ask God to have His blessing on our plans. We need to come to terms with our identity and our identity is what God says it is. Notice what happens next in verse 28, 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. Jacob was no longer to be called Jacob, or the deceiver, or the one who grasps, or the one who doesn t know how to be second, or the one who takes from others and is manipulative and deceitful. That can t be him anymore. 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. Israel means striven with God. That is beautiful. Jacob has found his true self. He has finally embraced it. And we have to be careful because all of us have a shadowy side to ourselves. And if we are not familiar with our shadows a lot of people can pay a heavy price for not embracing their true self. We have to come to terms with our true identity, our authentic self. In the same way that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come, so it was with Jacob the deceiver. We too could have a name change when we no longer operate apart from God. When I was younger I lied so much that I came to believe my own lies, and I would get angry with someone if they didn t believe me. I was very deceitful and manipulative, and my lies created a ton of issues. I Page 8 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

9 would go to great lengths to cover my lies. I would become paranoid because I was a liar. To feel better about myself if someone caught me in a lie, I would make them look bad when really it was me being a Jacob. When God got hold of me and saved me I started wanting to live for Him, but I had lied so much that it was like breathing to me. I had to learn how to be a truthful individual. I wasn t sure that people would like the authentic Bobby. I remember early on in my sobriety I went to a place to play pool. At that time I probably hadn t had a drink for six months to a year. I walked up to the bartender at this place where I was playing pool and I said, Hey, I am the designated driver. Do you mind if I get a Coke? Now a designated driver would get a free coke, but I wasn t the designated driver, I just said that to get a free Coke. I could have paid a buck and told the truth, but that shows how deceitful I was, and how I needed to learn to be a man of truth, to be honest as a person. I walked back and started playing pool and I realized that I had just lied to that bartender. And I sensed that I needed to go back and be honest. So I began to wrestle and wrestle. And there were so many moments like that, where I had to ask myself how much do I really want to walk in the truth. I walked back to that bartender and I said, Excuse me, I m sorry. I just lied to you because I wanted a free Coke. I am not really the designated driver, so here is a dollar. Now the bartender probably thought I should chill out. Many people would want to relax us in our convictions thinking that wasn t that big of a deal. But it was when it is part of a deeper core. I was trying to learn how to be an honest man. I was learning how to tell the truth in that moment. And I had to practice being truthful over and over and over again, so that I could be trusted. No one wants the reputation of being deceitful, of telling lies, of putting other people down so that they can feel better about themselves. People like that have friends for a while, and then the phone starts ringing less and less because they are on to you. No one wants deceitful friends. If we are going to walk in the truth, if we are going to honor the Lord, it is going to be a wrestling match to surrender ourselves to Him. Jacob finds out that he is going to be called Israel. How cool is that? Don t you love that about God? Maybe you feel like you are deceitful, you are a liar, you are manipulative and you don t like being second. The truth is we are all second. God is first. He needs to be the king of our hearts. When we start walking around like we are Page 9 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

10 king, there is a problem. We need to bow to Him, we need to submit to Him, and we need to yield to Him. And then we will get a new name. I love that. God did want Jacob to own who his false self was. But He wanted to give him a new name for the new man he had become. And I think what Jesus would say to us if we tell Him we are a sinner would be, That s true, but I died for you, and now you are a Christian, a little Christ. You have a new identity. Jacob s new identity also had a new name - Israel. That is God s grace. Next Jacob plays a little quid pro quo in verse 29. The Jacob asked Him, Please tell me your name. Jacob is saying, Okay, so I m now Israel, but who are you? But He said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there He blessed him. Isn t it interesting we find our identity when we find God? I like to say it like this: God first revealed Himself to me and then He revealed me to myself. When I was out trying to find myself apart from God, I got more of my false self. But in coming to God we discover our true identity. Kent Hughes in his book, Beginning and Blessing (Preaching the Word) Commentary, he writes, In the context of the Bible to disclose your name is to be an act of self-disclosure, a revelation of your character, your deepest identity, so the assailant asked the question, What is your name, and he said, Jacob. Here it was a confession of guilt. I m a fraud, a deceiver, a supplanter. I am rightly named Jacob for I cheated my brother twice. Now he is ready to be changed. Now life can take on new meaning and purpose. Does the Lord tell Jacob His name when He is asked? No, but in verse 30 it shows He doesn t need to. 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. Peniel means face of God. I love that. Jacob knew who he encountered. God came to meet him in a powerful moment. God wanted Jacob to recognize his guilt, he got grace, and he got a blessing. And he experienced the blessing God s way, not through deceit but through acknowledgement of his authentic self, coming to terms with his identity. Jacob ends up with the blessing that he could have had all along. We go through a lot of things in life. We might cheat other people out of things, and we deceive when all along we could have had a blessing. We just need to wrestle with God. What are the things that you have that aren t rightly yours, that don t rightly belong to you? What are the things that you are seeking to gain through wrong ways Page 10 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

11 because you are not secure enough in your own identity to hear what God has to say about you? When we read these verse we read where Jacob saw the Lord, but Scripture says that no one can see God and live. Well, we need to remember that no one can see God s essential glory and live, but to see a visitation, an aspect of God s glory, is different. No one can stare into the sun for long without going blind, but we can take a peek. And we can get a peek of God s glory, but we can t see His essential glory and live. Jacob got to see a peek, a moment, wrestling with this angel of the Lord, and he has been delivered. Have you ever had a moment with God where you just knew you encountered Him? And you know you are just going to go on with life and it is going to feel differently? Something has lifted. The clouds lifted and all of a sudden you feel like you can move forward. Joni Eareckson, who became a quadriplegic, wrestled and wrestled with her new existence until she came to the place where she realized there was grace for the place. You see some of us are going to go through things in life that we cannot imagine how we are going to get through it. And there will be grace for the place, because God is the God of grace. So now let s take a look at this painting of Rembrandt depicting Jacob and the angel of the Lord. I tried to find some research into the painting to help us understand what Rembrandt was trying to show us but I came up empty. Page 11 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

12 For my homework I just stared at the painting for some time and drew out some observations that I will share with you that I see in the painting. This is a painting that was done in 1659 in the Netherlands. It now exists in Berlin, Germany, done with oil on canvas. But note the contrast in classic Rembrandt fashion with the darks and the lights. As I thought about this I thought that Jacob looks like what I would picture Esau looking like, a ruddy man, not that smooth, cleaned up person. It is as if life has worn him out. He has been wrestling so long with his emotions and wanting his own way that he looks tired and exhausted. Notice that he is the one who is dirty. With the right light you would be able to see the dirt on his back. And then notice the Angel of the Lord. There is no dirt, He is pristine. Who is the one that got really worn out? Jacob. The angel is looking as if he Page 12 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

13 could do this all day long. The angel, almost a bit effeminate figure, looks at Jacob with simple love and serenity. What I love is when Jacob was wrestling and wrestling the Angel knew that he was tenacious, so He touched Jacob s hip socket, and he gets the brokenness. Again that is crippling grace. What I also love though is when God breaks us, notice how the angel s hand is behind Jacob s back, and how his knee is there to support his fall. God might break us, but He won t let us fall without catching us. That is one of the things that I found most beautiful as I looked at this painting. I sat there and I thought, That is God. He will touch us in a hard spot, the joint might go out of socket, but then He will catch us before we fall. By the way this wasn t a dream of Jacob s because he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Jacob would know with every step he took that he had been broken, but blessed. It reminded me of the blind lady I ran into lately who said to me, I am actually happier blind now than when I could see, because now I see people s souls and I am far less judgmental. So there you have it. Notice the holiness and the serenity of the angel, ready to offer grace in bringing Jacob to surrender. Now let me draw out some questions for us. First, what is an area of your own life where you have been wrestling with God? I can say that it is going to come down to the question of - will you trust Him? Will you trust that He loves you and cares about you and that He will give you grace for the place? Number two, why do you think it is so hard to rid ourselves of self-dependence? Again it goes back to that trust issue. We will always realize over and over again how many times we have to reconsider how hard it is to trust God. It is not easy, but it is possible. It is the story of Abraham, right? The doubter who didn t know how to trust, but who learned to trust. We want our own way. We want to live our lives according to our own fantasies. We want our own identity, and we will always be frustrated no matter how much we think the grass is greener on the other side because it will never really be greener. Imagine how miserable Adam and Eve were locked outside the Garden, looking into the place where they could never go back, and remembering when. To avoid living a life of regrets we must become surrendered. Page 13 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

14 Third, what is God asking you to surrender to Him today? Is it an addiction? Is it a relationship? Is it a career? Here are our takeaways for life lessons on brokenness and blessing. First, fear and loneliness are often useful for creating the desperation of climate needed that leads to our surrender. Second, recognize that brokenness is essential to rid us of all remaining selfdependence and reliance. Third, brokenness is also the key to discovering our true self. Fourth, know that God loves a broken and contrite heart. As the Psalmist said in Psalm 51 and verse 17, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Fifth, brokenness makes us useful to both God and to others. And that is beautiful. We get to be used. I love that about God. He doesn t shame us in our brokenness; rather we become broken to enter into the race, to learn more. And then finally, remember God breaks us in order to bless us. As Derek Kidner in his commentary wrote, It was a defeat and a victory in one. And an unknown person said it like this: Higher than the highest heaven, deeper than the deepest sea, Lord, thy love at last has conquered. Grant me now, my supplication none of self and all of thee. A mitt is not useful to the athlete until it has first been broken. If you feel an invitation unto brokenness, it is because God wants you to be more useful for His ways. Let s pray. I thank you, Lord, that on a cross you were broken. You died for us, to heal us of our sin and our guilt. I pray that we will all look to you, that we will love you and trust you. Thank you for the Scriptures. May we live the broken but blessed life. In Jesus name. Amen. Page 14 of 15 pages 5/13/2018

15 The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 15 of 15 pages 5/13/2018