All right, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 11, and we are going to cover again just one verse. So at this rate, we're going to be in Hebrews for a while. But as I said, those, these three verses, verse 20 to 22, actually represents almost about 35 to 40 chapters.

And so the verse that we're looking at in verse 21 about Jacob covers about 13 to 14 chapters, about 13 chapters. And so instead of just kind of doing a quick overview and saying, by faith, he did this and moving on, I think it'll be helpful for us to understand the context behind what it means when he says, by faith, Jacob did this.

Okay. So let me read it again in verse, let me just read verse 21, and then we'll jump into the text. By faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worship leaning on the top of his staff. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for your guidance.

We pray for your Holy Spirit to speak to us. May your word be handled in a way that honors you, that only your voice may be proclaimed. Give us eagerness, Lord God, to hear from you and to apply and shape our hearts and our lives, Lord God, according to your will and purpose.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You know, through the pandemic, and I know that even in our church, there are some people who lost loved ones for various reasons. Obviously this happens, you know, that's just part of life, but you know, it's especially hard when you lose someone during COVID because of all the restrictions at the hospital and at the funeral homes.

And, you know, this year, I didn't mention this to Lee, but, you know, Lee's father passed away and we were at the funeral and Lee's father actually left a letter to his children and his family. And I was really intrigued to hear because, you know, they were so blessed.

And so he gave me an opportunity to read it and I was so encouraged by it. And again, obviously I don't know his father, I don't know what his life was like, but you could tell that in that letter how much God meant to him. And so everything that he wrote in there and he wrote it to the family, he wrote it to each one of his children, that this is what he desires and, you know, sharing his mistakes, that don't make these mistakes, but, you know, making sure that you guys prioritize, you know, church, prioritize God, prioritize his word.

And I was just so blessed to read that, knowing that that was the last thing that he left behind to his family and children. You know, we take anything that somebody says in the last words very seriously because we know that it's not going to be frivolous, that whatever it was in your heart is what you're going to leave behind.

This is what I want you to remember. This is the totality of the things that I know in life, that this is something that I want you to have. And that's how in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon at the end of his life summarizes all of his experience and says, "The chief end of man is to fear God and to worship him, to obey him." That's why we take the Great Commission very seriously because of all the things that Jesus taught at the end, he gave that commission to the church, "Go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit." He taught many other things, but the reason why we call that the Great Commission is because that was the last commandment that he left the church.

And so since then, that's what drives the church. This is what he's placed us to do, to go and be a light to the world. And again, another thing that, again, that my dad said when, you know, he was alive that I remember, you know, when you're young, your dad says things just kind of like, "Yeah, okay, you know, that sounds good." But years later, you think back and it makes so much sense and there's so much wisdom behind it.

And one of the things that my dad said that really stuck with me, he said, "How you leave something is much more important than how you came." He said, "Much more important because how you leave is what they will remember from that point on." And again, it's so true, there's so much wisdom behind that, that we start with a bang and then we end with the fizzle.

And typically, that's how human relationships are, you know, like we start with excitement and then it just kind of fizzles out and then we have experience after experience of bad experiences. But it's much more important how we end than how we started. Jacob's life was a man who his...

We're talking about in this one verse, at the end of his life, he's blessing his children so that God's covenant blessing will be passed on. And in this short sentence contains basically the totality of his life. What was most important to him is at the tail end, he knows he's going to die and he wants to make sure that his children are blessed.

And so that little phrase, "By faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph," reminds us of the way he died and what is stated about his death tells us that this man truly was a man of faith. In fact, in Numbers chapter 23, verse 10, remember the prophet Balaam, right?

He was trying to be recruited in order to put a curse on the nation of Israel and he recognizing that this family had a special blessing from God and he refuses. And in Numbers 23, verse 10, he says this, "Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth apart of Israel?

Let me die the death of the upright and let my end be like his." So even in Numbers 23, 10, there was something about Jacob's death that he says, "I want to die. Not only do I want to live like him, but I want to make sure that I die like him." And so this phrase, again, this verse in verse 21 contains all that they knew about his death, that they were passing down from generation to generation.

So what is contained in this verse that we are to glean from? So let's look at the text, right? Verse 21, "By faith Jacob blessed Joseph's two sons." Do you notice something interesting here? Who are Joseph's two sons? It's his grandchildren. Usually when the father passes away, he blesses his children.

It's supposed to go to, the blessing really should go to his children, but here the highlight and his blessing at the tail end of his life doesn't say he blessed, who should have been blessed? Reuben, right? Reuben was the first child of the 12, or any one of these children, but he says he blessed Joseph's two children.

So what's going on here that him blessing his grandchildren are highlighted above the others? Now we already know that Reuben was the first child of the 12, and he's the one who should have gotten the double blessing. Instead, Reuben is bypassed. It says in Genesis chapter 35 verse 22, "Because of his sin, he forfeited his birthright." That he ended up sleeping with Jacob's concubine and defiled that, and as a result of that he lost his privilege.

So it wasn't that he wasn't blessed, but his first born blessing was passed on. And so that's what he's saying here. He's passing it on. And so what I want to look at this morning is Genesis chapter 48 verse 1, to look at the context, the historical context behind which this takes place, and what is it about his blessing and his tail end that is meant to give us a reminder and as an example what it means to be a man of faith.

So Genesis chapter 48 verse 1, it starts off by saying, "Now it came about after these things that Joseph was told, 'Behold, your father is sick.' So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him." You notice the order of the names of Joseph's son, Manasseh and Ephraim.

Remember we said that whenever you see the order in something, there's significance in the Bible? So Manasseh is the older son. Ephraim is the younger son. And that's why they're mentioned in that order. But look with me in verse 5, chapter 48 verse 5. "Now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine." So this is Jacob talking to Joseph.

And then he calls them, "Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are." So there's two things that we need to recognize. One, where Jacob says, "I'm going to treat them not as my grandchildren, but my own children. I'm going to bless them just as I will bless my other children, I will bless them like my grandchildren." So they're not going to get residuals from what you have.

I'm going to directly put my blessing upon them. So that's the first thing that we need to recognize. But the second thing is, look at the order in which he mentions it. Right? Joseph, it's Manasseh and Ephraim. Jacob mentions it by Ephraim and Manasseh. And there's a reason for that.

Right? It wasn't that the author was dyslexic and he was just getting the order, you know, mixed up. In verse 8 through 10, "When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, 'Who are these?' Joseph said to his father, 'They are my sons, whom God has given me here.' So he said, 'Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.' Now the eyes of Israel were so dim from age that he could not see." Does that remind you of something?

Right? Anybody who was awake last week, right, in the last week's text, and that whole drama of, you know, of Jacob scheming and taking over Esau's blessing because Isaac could not see and kind of tricking and, you know, put on fur to trick his dad? And he said, well, at the end of his life, I mean, his blindness may be genetic.

Right? So he said the same thing. He was in the same position. He could not see. And it was time to pass on the blessing, starting from verse 11 through 20. "Israel said to Joseph, 'I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your children as well.' Then Joseph took them from his knees and bowed with his face to the ground.

Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right, and brought them close to him." And it was very deliberate because his father can't see. And so Joseph wanted to make sure that his older son had the right hand blessing because the right hand blessing meant that he was going to get the double blessing because he's the older child.

So he did it deliberately in order to not to make the mistake, right? Not to make the same mistake that Isaac made that he's making sure. Okay? My guess is Joseph probably heard the story, you know, it was passed down how his father got the blessing. He's like, "No, you know, obviously this runs in the family.

We're not going to let this happen again." So he takes them by their hand and he places them so that all he had to do is put his hands on them. And so he brings them in that order, but in verse 14, "But Israel stripped out his hand, right hand, and laid it on the head of Ephraim." So instead of doing this, what does he do?

He does this, right? "Who was the younger and his left hand on Manasseh's head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. He blessed Joseph and said, 'The God before whom my father Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil.

Bless the lads and may my name live on them and the names of my father Abraham and Isaac. And may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.'" So Joseph sees what's going on. His father is switching his arms and maybe he's forgotten. He doesn't see correctly.

And so Joseph tries to correct him in verse 17, "When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, it displeased him." You messed up, like father, like son, right? "It displeased him and he grasped his father's hand and removed it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.

So Joseph said to his father, 'Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head.'" Remember what happened to Jacob and Esau? Because Isaac blessed Jacob over Esau? They lived in contention and fighting all their life because Esau got mad. And I think maybe Joseph was thinking, "If you do this, these two are going to be fighting the rest of their life." And in order to say that, he said, "You did this wrong." And he was displeased and he grabbed his father's hand to make it right.

And Jacob says first, but his father refused and said, "I know, my son. I know. I am not Isaac." I added that. That's not in the text. My guess is, he remembers all of this and he said, "It's not a mistake. I'm not being tricked. I know I don't see, but this is deliberate.

He also will become a people and he also will be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations. He blessed them that day saying, 'By you Israel will pronounce blessing,' saying, 'May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.' Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh." Was not a mistake like his father.

He was not being tricked, but clearly it wasn't just a whim of Jacob. Since we got switched, I'm going to switch you too. Clearly Jacob knew something that God wanted him to do. That this was clearly God ordained. This is not a mistake. I'm not trying to get you to be contentious and then create the older brother being angry and jealous all of his life.

He said, "That's not what he's doing." God had a clear plan of what he was doing. And part of the reason, it doesn't spell it out for us, but if you look at the genealogies of Jesus, there are people in there that we would say, "That can't be the genealogy of Jesus.

There's adulterers and murderers in that genealogy." If we were to create a genealogy of our Lord and Savior, that is not the genealogy that we would create. Does anybody looking from the outside, is like, "You worship a God who came from a prostitute? From a murderer?" One of the clear things that we see in scripture is that God does not follow the natural pattern that you and I expect.

And part of the reason why he does that is to make it clear that his blessing does not come by man's effort. It is God who chooses. It is God who is sovereign. He has his own plans. He's not submitted to man's desires, but his will. I think Joseph should have known from the very get-go that this was God's plan, because you know what Ephraim's name means?

Ephraim's name means double portion. And you know what Manasseh's name means? Forgotten. So I would think that Joseph, when he brought them, he's like, "I hope they don't live up to their name." Maybe God had ordained this, that this is what he desired in order so that his blessing would continue to go.

But I also, I think we need to take a step back and understand what's going on here, because if it was simply the blessing to pass the double portion of his property and his name to his children, who was richer here? Usually when the father or grandfather passes away, you're waiting because they have a lifetime of accumulation of wealth that they're passing down.

And usually the older has more money than the younger, usually, right? Think about who Joseph is. Think about who these children are. Joseph is the second in command to Pharaoh. Remember, Jacob and his children barely survived through the famine because of Joseph. So whatever Joseph had pales in comparison to what Joseph had had opportunity to have.

So Ephraim's two children were heirs of whatever Joseph had. So humanly speaking, this blessing that's coming from Jacob really was nothing, humanly speaking. A double portion or triple portion or everything that you had probably was just a drop in the bucket to the wealth that they had an opportunity to have.

Obviously this was not about the wealth. This wasn't simply about their name. It was about the covenant blessing that was coming from God. Far above any human wealth, far above any power that Pharaoh would have had or they would have been heirs of. They're talking about the heir of what God has promised, God Almighty.

And Jacob understood that, Isaac understood that, Abraham understood that. Now Joseph and his two children, Ephraim and Manasseh, is standing in line to receive that blessing. You could see God's sovereign hands when he says in verse 21, "By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each one of the sons of Joseph." It was faith.

It was faith of who God is. He wasn't simply passing on material possession. It was God's blessing. But you know, we naturally ask the question, which Jacob would have also understood. Why does Jacob get it? Why does Ephraim get it? Clearly in Jacob's life, Jacob was, even though he was a schemer and he did all that he did, Jacob's life was a constant reminder to us that God blesses those who desire it.

Jacob, simple answer, God gave it to him because he wanted it more than anything else. He became the one who contended with God. And so God's blessing came down the line that, again, for the people who wanted it the most, and that was Jacob. Now he's passing it on, and then here's an interesting thing that he says.

After that he says he worshipped. Now in our, the way that we speak of worship, you know, typically we say, "What time is your worship?" Right, so we have one at nine o'clock, we have one at eleven o'clock. Well when does your worship end? Right, sometimes it ends at 10.15, sometimes when I go long it's 10.30, right?

And anything beyond that, you're frustrated, right? That's when it ends, right? So when does it end, when does it begin? How many people at your worship? Right, and that's the way we describe worship. But the word for worship here, about 80 to 90% of the New Testament translation of the word worship comes from this one particular word, proskuneo.

And the word proskuneo literally means to be prostrated, to bow down. And the picture of this is clearly seen in the book of Isaiah chapter six, verse three to five, when Isaiah is given a glimpse of God's glory in his throne. And you have the three creatures who are circling around his throne, day and night, declaring, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory." And they were praising God, and the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, and this is Isaiah's response to seeing his glory, "Woe is me, for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." It doesn't describe that Isaiah bowed down and he was prostrated, but you could tell by his words that's exactly what was going on. Because he could not lift his eyes to see his glory, in fact, he was terrified.

Because something that was so magnificent, something that was all inspiring, that he was in front of, and naturally he bowed down and said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined." The word proskuneo literally means to be prostrated, to be bowed down, and leaned forward. In fact, another meaning behind this is to lean forward to kiss.

To kiss the feet of somebody who is much bigger than you, much higher than you. I think we see this spontaneous worship, again, in sports arenas, or maybe you're watching something that's so awe-inspiring. As an example, if somebody, let's say LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, whoever you're a fan of, comes and he does a double, triple flip, back flip, behind the back, and he does a reverse dunk with five guys guarding him.

As an example, I'm just trying to exaggerate for the purpose of the illustration. You see something magnificent, and what do you see? A lot of times, his other players or the fan that's watching this are so affected by what he did, you see them getting up, and what do they do?

Raise their hand, what do they do? "We're not worthy. We're not worthy." That's what we see. This word proskuneo is a description of that. It's a description of when you're confronted with something so bigger than you, beyond you, that all you can do spontaneously, you burst out. It's like, "Oh my gosh, we're not worthy.

We're not worthy." That's that word. Again, it is not wrong to say, you know, our gathering of worship at 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock, but when we limit, when that's our whole idea of understanding, it is a trivial understanding of what the Bible teaches about worship. Worship is something when our eyes become open to His glory, and we recognize there's something so much more tremendously above that you and I could possibly comprehend, and we spontaneously respond in worship and adoration and awe and fear, all at the same time.

That's that word proskuneo, and that's how surrender happens. Surrender is not us trying so hard to make Jesus my Lord. Surrendering happens as you recognize He knows better than you. He's much bigger than you. He's much more important than you, and so when you are confronted by that, you end up surrendering.

You recognize you know nothing. There's nothing that you have. There's nothing that you can say. There's nothing that you understand that goes beyond what you have just seen. That's proskuneo. That's the word that is described when He says, "After He blesses them, He proskuneo, then He worshiped God." Now, we have to understand when it says He worshiped God, right, remember Jacob's life.

Jacob schemed in order to get the blessing. Humanly speaking, we're going to look at that and say, "Well, that guy shouldn't be getting the blessing. Esau deserves the blessing." However you look at the circumstance, he gets the blessing. He comes out, and remember the dream that he has, the Jacob's Ladder?

He sees the angels going back and forth, and God speaks to him, "What is this?" And then God reiterates the blessing given to him. Genesis 28, 13-15, "And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, 'I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie.

I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.'" Now even though he schemed, even though he manipulated, and even though he lied, because he desired it more than anything else, God blesses him and he reiterates, "You have my blessing." God himself tells him that.

If I heard this, I would automatically think, "I'm going to just start any business, right? Because God says he's going to bless me." I would automatically assume that I'm going to have 70,000 children. You know what I mean? You're going to have triplets and ... because you've got to populate the world, right?

I would assume that you're going to be the owner of the largest piece of land. It's just going to plop down, that you would expect that. But that's not what happens, right? In fact, Jacob lives most of his life afraid of his older brother, Esau. He's constantly running in fear because his brother was so angry that he got ripped off and every opportunity he had, and that reason, like after he gets the blessing, he has to go run.

Remember what happens after that, after the Jacob's Ladder? He runs into Rachel and he falls in love. Remember that story? He falls in love and he has to work to get her. That story is mentioned in Genesis 29, 17 to 20. It says, "And Leah's eyes were weak." Leah's Rachel's older sister.

"And Rachel was beautiful of form and face." Let me stop right there, okay? He falls in love with Rachel because she was beautiful of form and face, but Leah was, her eyes were weak. What does that mean? Why does the author mention that she has poor sight? Most commentators believe it's a euphemism to say there wasn't much to look at, right?

I mean, this is politically incorrect, but the Bible just spells it out. This is the circumstance behind what happened, right? So again, next time you go on a date and you come back and your friends ask, "How was she?" Instead of saying she has a great personality, just say, "Her eyes were weak." And hopefully they read the Bible, they know what you mean, right?

Because that's what he's saying. He's just laying out. There's not a lot to behold, but he falls in love with Rachel because she was beautiful. Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, "I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel." And Laban said, "It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man.

Stay with me." Look what he says, verse 20. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her. Just seven, what's seven years, right? He's falling in love with Rachel. If at the end of seven years I can labor and live like an indentured servant, if I can get Rachel, this is worth it.

You know what happens. Seven years he labors in love, it's nothing. And then on his marriage day, Laban, her father, tricks him and sends in Leah because he's probably concerned because her eyesight was not good. But maybe this is the best chance for him to get his daughter married off.

So he tricks him and has him lay with Leah instead. And when morning comes, he said, "Well, you took Leah." And he said, "How can you do this to me? I worked seven years for you. How can you do this to me?" And he just simply says, "It is not done in our land to have the younger married before the older, so you have to take the older one." Seven years.

Let's think about that. You know, just seven years. It was like every year, every day, it's like one more day, one more month. You know, can you imagine on the seventh day, the last day, boom, I did it. Another seven years. Not for Rachel because of the bad-eyed girl, right?

Can you imagine what the next seven years was like for him? If seven years went by fast, the next seven years probably was like torture. Bitterness and anger every single day, another day because I got tricked. That's his life. This is after God blessed him and said, "You're going to multiply.

You're going to have this land. Everybody else is going to be blessed because of you." And now he's 14 years in labor because he got tricked. And then after the 14 years are done, he's ready to go. And then LeBan says, "You can't leave." And he holds him for another six years.

So for 20 years, he's living as an indentured servant after he received the promise of God. Well, after the 20 years, you would think that it would be done, but you know what happens, right? After 20 years, there's another disaster that happens. One of his daughters gets raped and his other sons get angry.

They go and they kill that whole family. And that family, they're much more powerful and richer than he is. And so again, he has to pack up all his bags and he has to leave and run away to Bethel. That's his life. And he said, "Oh, the suffering's behind me.

Hopefully, this is enough." But you know what happens? Contention happens within the brothers. And because Joseph has a dream that God had ordained that blessing was going to come through his family, remember what happens? His brothers get angry and they get jealous and they beat him and then they end up selling him as an Egyptian slave.

So he loses his loved child most of his life. That's his life. That's most of his life. That was his life after he received the blessing. Now, you would think at the end of his life, he's like, "Well, I'm going to bless you." He's like, "I don't know if you want this blessing." You know?

Because after I got this blessing, you know what happened to me? I don't know if I want to pass on this blessing. But he says he broke out in worship. How can he break out in worship after that? What was it that he knew that caused him to be prostrated?

By this time, what Jacob knew, that the blessing was far beyond land. It wasn't about wealth. It was about the sovereign God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob. And the promise that he made was going to be passed down. In fact, the time that has passed between the initial promise to Abraham to the passing of the baton to Joseph's children, 200 years have passed.

No land, no nation, and they're not the superpower. 200 years have passed. How many years pass, more pass, before they even enter their first step into the promised land? 440 more years pass. So after he blesses, if Jacob's life was hard, after he blesses Abraham and Manasseh, they become slaves for 400 years.

I don't know if you want this blessing. Who want this? I would scheme to get the other brother to be blessed. I would make sure that he gets it. Even if I was the older brother, give it to him. I don't want this. Hebrews chapter 11, 39 to 40 says this, "And all these, having gained approval through their father, through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect." At some point in their journey, they realized it wasn't about the physical promised land.

Their faith began to grow. It was much more than that. It was about salvation. It was about God's plan of redemption for mankind. And so his blessing that he's passing on to them is that God of the universe who blessed your grandfather, me, and now to you. You know what's interesting is that he, Prosconeo, okay, that's why he worshiped, because they saw a bigger God than Pharaoh.

They saw a blessing much far beyond this physical world. That even in the greatest tragedy, God is still sovereign. There's a plan. And he believed that. And when he recognized that, he was bound down in worship. You know what's interesting is after he worships, it ends with leaning on the top of his staff.

And again, this is why inductive Bible study is so important, because when you just read it through, you're going to say, "Oh, he was blessed and he had a staff." And I don't know why that's there, but it's there. And I was wrestling with this all week, right? And I was trying to look at commentaries and listen to sermons and going back and forth.

Why is that there? Because, you know, some people will say that, you know, the staff in the Bible oftentimes represents authority. So in Psalm 23, verse 4, it says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." So a shepherd would hold his staff basically as a weapon. So if the wolves come in, he would use that to protect and sometimes guide, right? Guide the sheep to go to discipline and get them to the right place. But why would that be stated here, right?

Why would he worship and then he leaned on his staff? Think about what that staff meant, particularly to Jacob, right? Think about what that staff meant specifically to Jacob. For Jacob, it wasn't just a symbol, right? For Jacob, it wasn't just because he was a shepherd and in the middle of shepherding, he had to have that staff to protect his animals.

I mean, he was at his deathbed. That staff was his actual crutch. Because after all that scheming, at the end, he was about to meet his brother Esau, and he knew that Esau wanted to kill him. And so he encounters the angel of God and he wrestled, remember that?

He wrestles and he wouldn't let him go. So all night he wrestles with God, he said, "I'm not going to let you go until you bless me, until you make things okay." And then he says, "Okay, okay." So God ends up losing. You know what I mean? I mean, of course, he didn't really lose.

God could have just said, "Get away from me," and then that would have been it, right? But he wanted Esau to contend with God. And as a result of that, what does he do? God dislocates his hip joint to remind him that this is the day that you wrestled with God.

And so when they took his hip joint out, he had a limp all his life. So that staff to him was a crutch. And so God did that deliberately to remind him. And the nation of Israel isn't called Abraham, isn't called Isaac, it's called Israel, after what he did.

In fact, this event was so significant in Genesis 32, verse 32, it says, "Therefore to this day, the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip." All the things that he experienced, all the scheming and his business savvy and all of that he did, God made him limp all his life to remind him that the blessing came to you because you contended with God.

Because you sought after me, you wrestled and you said, "I'm not going to let you go." And then he named the whole nation, all the descendants after that, so that every time they say, "Why are we called Israel? How come he wasn't named after Abraham? He's the one who started, he's the father of faith.

He's the one who started all of this. Why aren't we called Abraham? Why not Isaac? Isaac's the one who was going to be offered." And it pointed to the coming of Christ. He was a clear type of Christ. Why aren't we called Isaac? Why are we called Israel? So that they would tell their children, "It's because your grandfather, great, great, great grandfather, he contended with God.

He sought after God. He wanted the blessing from God more than anything else in his life." And so that staff that he was leaning on is a reminder of all that journey. Because every time he took a step, it was a reminder that the greatest thing that he did in life was contending with God.

That's a consistent lesson that we see all throughout scripture. You know, whenever something goes wrong, we want to fix it. If we do this and organize this, we have the right people, we have the right finances, right program, right teaching, right discipleship. If we do all of this, we can get it right and make a church and do all of this.

And at the end, when it works, what do we do? Because I was smart, because I worked hard, because I was disciplined. And all of that, if you're not careful, is man scheming. That somehow if we're smart enough, if we're good enough, if we have experience enough, if I know enough, if I'm talented enough, that somehow the blessing of God is going to fall on me.

Remember what Jesus said to his disciples before he left? You cannot bear fruit unless you abide in me. He told them the same thing, remain in me. Rely on me. Depend on me. Continue with me. Because you cannot bear fruit until you depend on me. This is why prayer is so important.

That sometimes even Bible study is our scheming. If we know more, if we study more, if I exposit more, if I remember more, that somehow I'm going to force God's blessing upon me. No, it's when we surrender more, when we recognize we are weak, when we recognize with all the scheming that I had, he could not shake his brother.

All the effort, all the money that he had could not quench his brother's anger toward him. And he knew that the only hope that he had is if God would protect him. And so he contended with God. And that's why he was delivered from that, the only what God can do.

Salvation of mankind is not something that you and I do because we're clever. That if you get the right gifted person who is rightly trained and give them right education, read the right books, connect them with the right people, people will be saved. The arrogance of that. The human arrogance of thinking that God is looking for smart people to do his work, program in a certain way, organize in such a way.

No. The greatest, greatest place where God is always taking his people is for us to surrender. Recognize I don't have it in me. And when I come before God and contend with God and surrender to God, begging God, asking God, he says he will answer. That's why he says, ask, seek and knock and it will be answered.

It will be given and it will be opened. God is our answer. So in this short verse reveals to us his whole life, how a schemer became a worshiper of God. That's his story. That's your story. And that's my story. And this is why we need to watch and pray.

Let's pray. Again, as we invite our worship team to come, let's take a few minutes to pray before God. Where are you in your walk with God? When's the last time you can honestly say that I wrestled with God? I'm contending with God. This is just something that we just kind of prayer, something that we just kind of sprinkle on the things that we are doing.

And even though we say glory to God, but in the back of our minds, we're taking most of the credit. Where's God? Let's take some time to really come before God. And there might be tons of things that we don't understand. They come before God, even that I don't understand Lord, but I believe in you.

So again, this morning to commit, to contend with God, that again, that the faith of Jacob will be reflected in our lives as well. So let's pray.